


A View From The Top

by RayBell310



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Equestrian, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Original Character-centric, Parent-Child Relationship, Shamisen, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Volleyball
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:15:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 30,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26441020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RayBell310/pseuds/RayBell310
Summary: Miyagi's Super Ace, Ushijima Wakatoshi, doesn't really understand girls or anything else for that matter. He just wants to play volleyball.Her family has other plans for her future, but Souma Fuyumi loves riding too much to give it up.An ultra slow-burn slice of life eventual romance of two souls dreaming big and making their three-year journey through high school in a classic 'spring time of youth' tale.
Relationships: Ushijima Wakatoshi/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	1. May, 2009 - First Love Confession

**Rin-rin Apple Orchard, Aomori**

Picture a girl, small and slender with straight black hair that falls to just below her shoulders with a small enameled butterfly hairpin to keep her bangs out of her tilted black eyes. She is lightly tanned, but not overly so, and dressed in the sports tracksuit of Shiratorizawa's middle school division, its proud white-feathered emblem emblazoned on the breast. And then picture a boy dressed the same. His hair is cut short in that crew cut that's popular for boys of his age group, his tan is dark and made even darker by how deeply he blushes and sweats.

The setting is some quiet corner of an orchard in Aomori, by an old tool shed hidden in the glade of low-hanging apple trees. It was at least three months from apple-picking season, so instead the would-be middle school graduates learned to trim excess flowers in preparation of the next harvest and gathered the discarded blooms for a cooking lesson.

The pair stood awkwardly opposite each other. She had a heavy basket of culled apple blossoms that weighed her arms down, he was fidgeting with his sling bag and holding his heart in his hands. So, this was the famous third year school trip confession... a staple of middle school experiences. 

It was the beginning and end of her first love confession. Fuyumi remembered listening politely as Yasu-kun stuttered and stumbled his way into asking her out, she remembered thinking that perhaps now was the time to feel equally nervous, but somehow her heart wouldn't start pounding the way it was supposed to be. 

She remembered apologising for not feeling the same way, looking more sincere and apologetic than she actually felt. Some part of her wished she could at least feel bad for the way Yasu-kun tottered away dejectedly. But above all, more than her own experience, Fuyumi remembered the fragrance of apple blossoms and the other confession that was happening on the opposite side of the shed. 

It wouldn't have been good to be seen walking out of the woods together, so she had decided to wait a little bit before returning to her friends, but apparently love confessions were the only thing on everyone's agenda and students wound up embarking on their romantic journeys in shifts. Just a mere handful of yards away, someone else was being confessed to as well.

Fuyumi realised this too late as she popped a piece of apple-flavoured hard candy in her mouth and nearly choked when a rather shrill "WHY?!" pierced the sultry silence. While Fuyumi's rejection had been accepted by Yasu-kun with quiet resignation, the other girl was taking her own failed confession... rather badly. 

"Because I just want to play volleyball." came the deadpan delivery. Even for a third year middle schooler, the boy's voice was already quite deep and no longer held that adolescent warble. 

His honest reply was even more poorly received though, as his heart-broken would-be paramour raced away in a flurry of kicked leaves and tears. 

Now seemed as good a time as any to get out of here, but as she rounded the corner, basket still in hand, she nearly walked into an unexpected wall. 

"Uh!" she had stopped short of ramming face first into the boy who had nonchalantly strolled out of his side of the shed, but it was no less surprising. 

Ushijima Wakatoshi was tall for his age and already built solidly from a combination of good genetics and hard training. With a square jaw, thick brows and a usually stoic expression that looked downright old on his 14 year young face, he inadvertantly embodied his nickname 'Ushiwaka', like the samurai from the Genpei War.

Fuyumi looked up at him to see that same implacably unreadable expression he always wore: neither surprised nor angry nor embarrassed that she had clearly overheard them. It was, in truth, a little frightening. It must have taken nerves of steel for that girl to confess to him, especially when he was looking down from his great height and eagle eyes focused on you and you alone. 

Even though this was their third year at Shiratorizawa Academy, this was the first time she ever really stood in person next to the famous volleyball prodigy. Pitting her petite four-foot-nine height against his already towering almost six foot frame just made it all the more imposing. Ah... what a giant, just what did he eat to get so massive? 

"Sorry," she apologised, bowing. "I didn't mean to eavesdrop."

He made a noncommittal noise that she supposed meant he either didn't care or didn't mind and walked away. Ah well... everyone knew Ushijima, even if not personally. Unapproachable didn't begin to describe it. His broad strides quickly put distance between them and he rapidly disappeared amongst the trees. Still toting her basket, Fuyumi toddled down the same path and emerged much later to find her friends.

Back at the benches, Nao-chan and Ayu-chan were waiting for her with their own baskets and no small amount of excitement on their faces. 

Standing just a little taller than Fuyumi, with her black hair cut in a short bob and a feathered fringe, Nao-chan was Fuyumi's best friend since first year, and they both were members of the equestrian club. Bright and beautiful Nomiya Ayu was the tallest of the trio and wore her light brown hair in a high ponytail, the very embodiment of a Shiratorizawa Sporty Girl, she was in the tennis club but shared the same class. 

"Welcome back, Fumi-chan, how did it go?" asked Nao-chan, her big brown eyes sparkling with excitement. 

"Ah... I told him no." 

"What? That's a waste!" complained Ayu-chan disappointedly, "Yasu-kun is very cute!"

"I just didn't have that feeling." shrugged Fuyumi as they carried the picked blossoms to a big basin of water and put on their aprons and kerchiefs like in home economics class. 

Dumping the flowers into the basin, they washed each one thoroughly and drained them. 

"Hasegawa-san from class 2 is still crying in the bathroom, poor thing." observed Nao-chan as she shook the water off their blossoms in a huge plastic sieve and transferred them to a single clean bucket. The trio glanced over their shoulder at the boxy little building that made up the public visitor toilets of the orchard. A larger group of girls were clustered at the door with their faces half worried and half indignant. The latter looks were mostly shot across the benches at the boys' groups where they were engaged in their own flower-washing activities. Among them was Ushijima-kun wielding his own plastic sieve and going about his job with the same serious expression as if his life depended on getting the rinsed blossoms as dry as possible.

"Eh? Why?" 

"You didn't know?" said Nao-chan, "Word is, she was going to confess to Ushijima-kun, but I guess he shot her down."

Fuyumi stayed quiet, awkwardly stirring the flowers with her hands to make sure all the dirt was washed off. She didn't want anyone to know she was an eye-witness to that devastatingly unemotional rejection.

"Ushijima-kun? He's a volleyball idiot, isn't he?" asked Ayu-chan, glancing at the volleyball star standing a head above his peers, "You would've thought every girl in the school would know better by now. Why is she getting so dramatic?"

"You say that, Ayu-chan," snorted Nao-chan, "But who's the one who cried in the showers last year until Fumi-chan caught a cold trying to get you out?"

"T--that was because he was so rude about it! He looked at me like he'd never seen me before!" came the defensive reply. "I'd never been so insulted!"

"Ayu-chan," Fuyumi felt compelled to interject gently, "You weren't in the same class and you don't play volleyball, he probably doesn't recognise people outside of that criteria."

"See? He's just a volleyball idiot, even if he is handsome."

That wasn't quite what Fuyumi meant, but she let it slide since it appeased Ayu-chan's ego. They made little potpourri bags in the big desiccator machines and jars of apple blossom jam to bring home as a souvenir of their trip. And of course, they ate some of the jam with fresh baked bread and mugs of steaming sencha for an afternoon snack.

It was May, the beginning of their last year of middle school; The weather was nice and the orchard's kitchen and rest station stood at the top of the hill, offering a gorgeous view of the late afternoon sun's slow descent to the horizon.

"Well, boys aside, we don't even know if we'll be able to stay together next year, so let's just treasure what time we have left, alright?" she tried to offer a smile, but was met with flat looks by her friends.

"Don't say it like we're all going to die!" scolded Nao-chan, "None of us have to take entrance exams, you know? We're all going to high school, together! But before that..."

"--Ariake!" "--Gotemba!"

Those beribboned jars of apple blossom jam were long eaten before the seasons rolled around again. True to her word, Ayu-chan made it all the way to the Tennis Nationals at Ariake Arena in Tokyo, but Nao-chan and Fuyumi didn't make it to the Show jumping Intermiddle Nationals at Gotemba that June despite their efforts. For them, Shizuoka was still a long way off. The volleyball team of course, without question, pummelled their way into the Nationals, continuing their grand tradition as perennial champions of Miyagi prefecture.

Just like that, in a whirlwind of tests, competitions and festivals their final year drew to a close. They said goodbye to some friends, and 'see you in April' to many others. And in 2010 when the sakura blossoms wreathed the trees, Ayu-chan, Nao-chan, and Fuyumi shed their middle school sailor-styled uniforms for the smart white blazers, pale blue blouses and pleated purple skirts of the high school division.

"Here's to another three years!" squealed Ayu-chan, her strong arms wrapped around Fuyumi as they looked at the big class assignment board.

"...I'm not in Class 4..." Nao-chan's voice squeaked out lifelessly.

"Eh?"

They looked at the board again searching for the "SENDOH" somewhere above Fuyumi's "SOUMA". Nao-chan's big brown eyes started to spill over with tears. "I-- It's just me in Class 3. Fumi-chaaaaaaaan, don't leave me!"

"EHHHH?!"

Fuyumi and Ayu-chan held on to a sobbing Nao-chan, petting her comfortingly. They paid little attention to the other names on the boards or the group of boys searching out their own assignments. 

* * *

"Wow-wow! We're all split up except for you two and Soekawa!" piped up flame-haired Tendou Satori. He was new, like the majority of the group. Even amongst the middle-school alumnus, Coach Washijou continued to weed out the weak and retain the best, bringing in fresh blood through scholarships. Although they were 'new', they'd already begun training since March and hung together with the familiarity of those who had already been put through a considerable wringer.

"Yo! Wakatoshi! Guess we'll be sharing a class this year eh?"

Ushijima Wakatoshi glanced down at his team mate, brown-haired Yamagata Hayato.

"...Yeah. I'm in your care."

"Right back atcha!" the libero grinned.

And thus, their high school life had begun, with some fanfare and more than a little tears...

* * *

**相馬 冬美 Souma Fuyumi (14 January 1995)**  
Class 4  
Height: 144 cm (as of 2010)  
Weight: 42 kg (as of 2010)  
Likes: Kokuto warabi-mochi  
Current Worries: How will she balance her studies and stable duties in first year?


	2. April 2010 - Rubberneckers 1.0

He was here! Yamazaki Kenji, year 1 class 1, stood under the shadow of the famed eagle pillar of Shiratorizawa Academy, more specifically, its high school division, and basked in its powerful atmosphere. It had taken him 3 years of hard studying and even harder training to drag himself out of Mutsushiro Boys' Middle School and earn a ticket to walk the hallowed grounds of powerhouse Shiratorizawa Academy.

The private school, famed for its high performance sports clubs, was several levels of hell to enter at middle school level, and Yamazaki had not made the cut then, but since then he'd crawled through even deeper levels of hell to punch his ticket to a soccer scholarship! 

That was why in the wee hours of the morning before training started, he decided to stop here and just take in the ambience. This was the very first day of school but he still couldn't believe he'd made it! And on top of that...

There were girls! He looked left and right, it was no longer a sweaty, stinky sausage party! Viva mixed schools!

"Paaaradise!" he cheered, not realising the weird looks that passing seniors were giving him. 

"Oi, oi Yamazaki, are you stalking the school gate?" 

It was his classmate, Aida Senjuro and his middle school friend, Oguro Shinobu. Yamazaki blushed a bit, still barely controlling his excitement. Aida had his bag slung on one shoulder and held his tennis racket in his free hand. Oguro, part of the soccer club like Yamazaki, shook his buzzcut head. Since they were now all together, they started walking towards the west block where all the sports clubs were situated.

"You know, I get that making it into school on scholarship is really awesome and all, but you're really beyond excited, aren't you Yamazaki-kun?"

"Of course, I am, Oguro-kun!" he gestured grandly, "Look at this place, compared to my previous single-sex hades, this is an oasis of girls, girls and more girls!"

His friends looked around. There certainly were girls, but Shiratorizawa wasn't exactly lacking in the big beefy guy department. In fact, you had to look quite closely to find the fragrant flowers hidden amidst all the sweaty brawn. Clearly, Yamazaki was just so starved for skirts that he was indiscriminately optimistic about his chances. 

Aida turned to Oguro with a scholastic air about him, "Shinobu! Am I right that you are in class 4?"

"Yes, why?"

"As Yamazaki-kun here is your club mate and new to Shiratorizawa, shouldn't you explain to him the nuances of girl-spotting in our fine establishment?"

Oguro gave his bushy-haired friend a blank look that lasted for all of a minute before understanding dawned. He cleared his throat. "Ah... Yamazaki-kun, are you aware of what it takes to get into Shiratorizawa's High School division?"

"? Well, yeah... you either pass the entrance exam or pass the scholarship interview after receiving an offer..."

"WRONG!" declared Aida loudly.

"Eh?"

"When we're talking about Shiratorizawa, we talk about the ladder system!" 

A ladder system was a common practice for exclusive and private academies such as Shiratorizawa. They ensured a smooth transition from middle school to high school (and sometimes college) without having to sit for the entrance exams. This allowed teenagers to enjoy at least six years of largely uninterrupted adolescence or, in Shiratorizawa's case, enabled middle school seniors to continue participating and training on a competitive level without worrying about the next stage of their academic life. This was of course, provided you managed to earn a coveted seat through the middle school entrance exam right out of elementary school or showed very early promise as a young athlete. Not many elementary students could handle the grueling academic trek to passing such a demanding exam. All that aside, Yamazaki didn't see what this had to do with girls and pointed out as much.

"Tsk tsk, you don't get it, do you?" chided Aida, "It's a proven fact, by observation of our seniors and the seniors before them, that the prettiest girls in Shiratorizawa are those who entered in middle school and climbed the ladder system! Brains, beauty, attitude! They've already been given 3 years worth of refining in all aspects! Case in point!"

He swung his tennis racket to the right, pointing at a group of girls walking towards the volleyball gym. "Hasegawa Rin! Class 4! Aomiya Kokoro! Class 2! Girls' Volleyball! Rating 10/10!"

Aida ignored their disgusted remarks about him being a pervert. Yamazaki looked. Sure enough, amongst the bevvy of beauties there were two who did stand out a bit more than the rest. But they were all attractive, so this didn't really prove his point. When he looked unimpressed, Aida turned to Oguro again. 

"Show him the picture!"

"Eh? But..."

"Just show him!"

As if guilty of some kind of crime, Oguro reached into his pocket and took out a small picture. It looked like a furtively taken phone camera snapshot, printed out on a cheap printer and cut to fit a wallet, but the girl in it was indeed extremely beautiful with her long, light brown ponytail flying and her vulpine face fixed in a look of competitive joy. She also looked very familiar...

"Wait... isn't that Nomiya-san from your class?!"

"BINGO!" 

"Wait, why do you have her picture..." 

"The bigger question is who *doesn't* have Ayu-chan's picture?! That hair, that tan... that white tennis miniskirt!" 

Yamazaki had a vague feeling that his appreciation for the female form was now being taken to odd and intense levels. He'd never taken a secret photo of a girl before. Heck, he didn't even have the courage to talk to one... What was this dark and demented side of Shiratorizawa Middle School alumnus he was witnessing? As if misconstruing his 'I am very disturbed' face for an 'I am still not convinced' face, Aida took out his own wallet and pulled out his own secret picture. 

"Behold! If the sporty kind isn't your type, then I recommend our white lily of Shiratorizawa! Fuyumi-chan from the equestrian club! She's not flashy like Ayu-chan, got that petite little lady look, y'know? A real Yamato Nadeshiko! And also, those legs in those riding pants!"

"...No, Senjuro, nobody calls her that but you..." interjected Oguro, "In the first place, she's not pale enough to be called 'white'."

"The white is not for her skin, but for her purity! She's always so sweet and proper, even talking to her seems wrong..." lamented Aida, "You know last year Yasucchi tried to ask her out?!"

"Hmmm..." said Yamazaki thoughtfully. "And then what happened?"

"He was never seen again." said Aida frankly. 

"Eh?!"

"For betraying the sanctity of the 'Admire Fuyumi-chan from a distance' pledge, he was taken to the back of campus and thrown off a cliff. So let that be a warning, don't talk to Fuyumi-chan with impure intent."

"Oi, Senjuro, stop exaggerating." Oguro interrupted before Aida could get too far, "I heard from Yamagata..."

Yamazaki listened to the tragic tale of Yasu Keiji, the boy who, after trying and failing to woo the girl he liked, also proceeded to fail his scholarship renewal interview because he wasn't exactly the second coming of Nakata and his soccer skills had plateaued after three years of murderous training. Life was hard in a powerhouse school, and Yamazaki knew that for the next three years he'd have to fight hard to keep his place too.

They stopped and started to move aside in single file as they spotted a wheelbarrow piled high with horse manure trundling along the same path in the direction of the Greenery Club's workshed. 

"Anyway... You should come by tomorrow at lunch, catch a real glimpse of Ayu-chan."

"Ahh.... and Fuyumi-chan, our lily of Shiratorizawa~~"

"Yes?" came a girl's voice out of nowhere. "Oh, Aida-kun and Oguro-kun, is that you?"

They froze and turned to the big wheelbarrow of poop that was now directly opposite them. There was a soft grunt as whoever was piloting it from behind the manure lowered the frame and came into view. 

It was definitely a girl with shoulder-length black hair tied up in a frazzled pony tail and she was certainly petite in her dark maroon coveralls emblazoned with the school insignia. In a normal school with a bigger variation of body types she may have been a little closer to average, but all the athletic frames in Shiratorizawa just made her seem downright tiny by comparison. 

Poor Aida, who had been hitherto been swept away in daydreams of 'white lily Fuyumi-chan' was now confronted by the reality of 'up to her elbows in horse crap and wearing rubber boots Fuyumi-chan'. 

"Oh...Hello Souma-san." said Oguro, his voice was bland with affected nonchalance at having been caught gossiping, "Aida here was just saying that he should help you with your wagon..."

"Really?" she asked, with the same polite and friendly cadence as if she hadn't heard Aida calling her 'Fuyumi-chan' like a stalker. She smiled at him, and it was quite a disarming smile except for the halo of spring flies hovering around her and her burden. Actually, it looked like she got a little of that horse poop on her cheek there... "That's kind, Aida-kun, thank you ever so much! But I wouldn't want to get your uniform dirty, so I must decline. Please have a good morning!"

With a little bow and another small sound of exertion, she raised the handles of the wheelbarrow again and continued on her way. Yamazaki waited until she was well out of earshot before turning to his friends, "Firstly, you guys are weird, I hope you know that. Secondly, what Yamato Nadeshiko walks around carting manure in the morning? ...what are you doing, Aida?"

Despite his initial shock, his friend already had his sleeves halfway rolled up and ready for manual labour before Souma-san had walked off. "I... I just thought I should've helped." he said, "I mean, look at that pile of crap, it's so big and she's so small..."

He did have a point, thought Yamazaki. Reflecting on the sight of her pushing such a heavy load around, it wasn't very gentlemanly of them to have let her go like that. They watched as Aida ran back up the road and quickly strong-armed his way into taking hold of the wheelbarrow.

"He's going to be up to his knees in a different kind of crap when he's done." mumbled Oguro as they looked at their watches and started sprinting for the soccer club room.

"If he likes her, why doesn't he just say so?" asked Yamazaki as their feet pounded the pavement.

"Just now, you were thinking that you should've helped her, right? Even though she said no and was clearly managing just fine?"

"Well, naturally!"

"Her moé power is too strong."

"Eh?"

"Souma-san... she's pretty, but her moé power is too strong. Senjuro has been trapped in two years of 'Ahh, she's so cute, I can't touch her' hell. That's not a girlfriend target anymore, that's an idol."

"O-oguro-kun..." Yamazaki gushed, starting to see his team mate in a new and insightful light.

"That's why you should be more realistic like me, Yamazaki. Ayu-chan is a far more realistic goal."

And just like that, the respect sloughed off like mud in a hot shower.

"...no, you're both weird."

"Ah hahaha..."

"I want a proper girlfriend, not you guys and your pervert pictures."

* * *

**野宮 杏悠 Nomiya Ayu (8 November 1994)**  
Class 4  
Height: 155 cm  
Weight: 45 kg  
Likes: Dashimaki tamago (salty)  
Current Worries: She's probably outperforming her boyfriend in her own club activities, do boys like an iron woman?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually debated on the description of Fuyumi's 'moé idol power'. The actual term I wanted to use was 高嶺の花 (takane no hana: the flower on a peak) which is an idiom describing something unattainable but distantly admired. I couldn't figure out how to phrase it without a high schooler going too poetic.


	3. April 2010 - At the bottom of the ladder

**April 2007, Shiratorizawa Academy Middle School Division**

"My name is Souma Fuyumi. I'm from Tsurugawa Preparatory School. I've ridden a horse... once." 

Tsurugawa? That was a girls' school in the heart of Sendai, one of the fancy ones with an affiliate middle and high school of its own. What was one of them doing here? 

Sendoh Nao glanced down the small line of first years at the girl just two places ahead of her. Literally, she glanced down. They were all roughly the same age, but Souma Fuyumi looked more like a 5th grader than a 7th grader. The sight of her niggled Nao's memory, and she creased her brow as she tried to recall where she'd seen her outside of the class they currently shared. 

Ah... during the entrance exam! Nao was just entering the exam centre when she'd seen a little girl in the dove grey dress and red-striped sailor collar of a Tsurugawa uniform getting out of some super swanky black car. She even had her long black hair in pigtails then, with red ribbons tied in bows. Nao had thought it was someone's little sister come to cheer their sibling on! It must have been uniform regulation because now she was wearing her hair loose with just a single decorative pin. 

"Todou Seiji! Rinno Elementary School, no experience!"

"Nakano Chizuru from Minami-Aoba Elementary School. I was with Kamiayashi Riding Club."

Ah, her turn already?

"Sendoh Nao. Okura Elementary School. I was also with Kamiayashi Riding Club."

The other kids introduced themselves, quite a few of them were also from riding clubs which pleased the coach and supervising teacher, Gorou-sensei. He smiled and nodded, especially those who came from some of the more prestigious riding schools. He was a tall man with feathery grey hair and a roundness in the gut that came with the 'dad' label. 

"Kamiayashi? My son used to learn riding there as well." he said to Nao and Chizuru-chan with a nostalgic laugh. "They encourage the students to get involved in caring for the horses, so you should adapt pretty well to our system."

Their 'system' as it turned out, was really just child labour, as she shortly discovered during the briefing. While a vet and farrier came by at regular intervals to provide the necessary professional care, the members took care of the day to day needs of the horses (or in this case, the one horse and two ponies). Morning duties began at 5am, so first years would have to wake up even earlier to turn them out into the paddock and muck out the stables while the second years did a daily check of hooves and prepared feed and freshened the water. Shiftwork also meant someone would have to sacrifice a Sunday or two each month. Already quite a few faces turned pale and uncertain. 

By the time the briefing finished, some had already withdrawn their application. Little Souma looked at her application form intently, probably already contemplating an alternative. Nao was very surprised to see the edges of the paper crinkle between determined fingers as she went through with submitting it. 

Once the seniors and Gorou-sensei dismissed everyone, she walked back to the dorm with Chizuru-chan, already feeling exhausted at the thought of having to get up at four. They parted ways on the corridor while Nao fumbled for her dorm room key. She dug through her pockets while idly reading her name on the sliding placard and then, below that, the name of her room mate of whom she hadn't yet had a chance to meet. 

Wait a minute...

"Excuse me. Sendoh-san, yes?" 

A silvery key was raised in the gentle grip of a pale hand. Souma smiled sweetly at her and bowed. It was an annoyingly faultless and genteel movement. "It's nice to properly meet you. I guess I will be in your care this year."

"Ah... yeah... likewise."

* * *

The smell wasn't great, but Nao was used to that familiar aroma of horse apples and soiled hay. Clad in the hand-me-down dark maroon coveralls of the equestrian club and under the guidance of third year Kuroki Hisako-senpai, she and Souma were working (badly) in tandem to haul out the night's leavings and load them onto a wheelbarrow. Those would be collected by members of the greenery club and people in the neighbourhood looking for good quality manure for mulching. 

They'd been at it for some time now, and at a much slower pace than the other two stalls, mostly because of Souma. 

The short girl was very clearly holding her breath as much as she could while she prodded uncertainly at the filthy bedding that needed to be removed. Nao looked at the hands that inexpertly held the pitchfork. There were a few calluses, the kind you got from a pen or a string instrument, but that was it. Those weren't the hands that did any sort of hard labour and that green face wasn't one used to the earthy smells of living animals. 

Nao's expression was equally sickly, but more because she was feeling pretty unlucky to be saddled with a Princess who could barely handle basic mucking out duties. The way she held that fork looked pretty dangerous too. Her lack of dexterity aside, they eventually managed to finish their work and return to the dorms for a shower before breakfast at the dining hall. 

Together with Chizuru-chan, they shared a table, but Souma hardly touched her food. The same happened for the next couple of days. On the third day, the Princess nearly threw up before she swallowed the first bite. By the end of the week, she was looking pretty pallid and there were dark circles around her eyes as the unfamiliar hours took a toll on her. 

It wasn't just her, the responsibilities took their toll on others even if not quite so severely. One by one they dwindled away. Eventually even Chizuru-chan threw in the towel. "I can do a more relaxing club activity and then go riding during the weekends." she'd said, shrugging. 

"This happens every year. Even the other clubs are used to getting late recruits from us." said Kuroki-senpai, a kind of half-smile gracing her heart-shaped face as she helped Nao with the wheelbarrow piled high with manure. Souma looked so tired that the upperclassman had her sit down and rest first. "I'd say don't worry about it, but it only gets harder as the numbers drop. The only reason why we even still have an equestrian club is because Wada-sensei from the High School division insisted on keeping the club open. He's an OB, and he's got a lot of pull with the school board."

As they trundled along, they passed a group of gungho volleyball first years racing with the soccer club. It looked like the soccer boys were winning, but at least one tall boy in a volleyball club t-shirt was pulling ahead. 

"Sendoh-san. You did the entrance exam, didn't you? Oh, what am I saying, of course you did. No sports scholarships for us equestrians. Getting in at middle school is smart. The high school entrance exam is even more competitive."

Nao nodded in agreement, her own mother had advised the same and she was glad to have taken the advice even if cramming for the paper nearly gave her ulcers. Just receiving that enrolment letter felt like the achievement of a lifetime, plus not having to worry about high school entrance exams in three years was a huge weight off her back.

Kuroki-senpai sighed a bit. "This is a school of extremes. There are no 'average' students. You either have the sports 'scholars'" --Nao could practically hear the quotation marks being dropped-- "in volleyball, soccer and tennis who barely squeak by during term tests and yet enjoy everything the school has to offer, or you have the smart and bookish ones who fight tooth and nail get in through the entrance exam and have to keep on fighting to stay on top. And of course there are the monsters who do well on both ends of the spectrum."

There was no mistaking the envy in her upperclassman's eyes as they watched rapidly vanishing crowd of boys, but Kuroki-senpai shook her head and moved on to other matters. "How are you coping, though? Aren't you rooming with Souma-san?"

"Souma-san is..." she floundered a bit, eventually plumping for "...considerate. She wakes up on her own, and keeps her area clean. She doesn't even keep the room light on if I go to bed. She goes into her own bunk to finish her assignments." 

That was the curious thing. Souma was nice. You couldn't say that she wasn't because all evidence indicated that she was, but that same niceness was like a wall. Nao didn't have the words to explain it, but it was like she was living with a sales person. Sales people at the supermarket smiled all the time too. After a week of facing that same smile day in and day out through meal times, class times AND club activities (although there was a lot less smiling at club time), Nao was starting to wonder if Souma was actually making fun of her. 

"I hope she isn't forcing herself to keep this up though." Kuroki-senpai wondered aloud, "We don't usually encourage people to quit, but I feel like she might anyway. Better to do it now than after she hurts herself."

They deposited the manure in the big mulch heap and finished up for the morning. Later in the day, before lights out, Nao decided to bite the bullet. 

Souma was sitting at her desk, slowly but doggedly trying to keep a grain bar down while looking at her math notes. She'd barely touched her dinner an hour ago. 

"Hey..." Nao broached the subject with the same abrupt determination as one would use to pull of a bandaid. "Aren't you forcing yourself? You don't have to, you know? Just cause we're roomies. I won't judge you or anything."

Souma was quiet, except for the crinkling sound of plastic as she pushed a bit more of the bar out of its wrapper. She looked directly at Nao with haggard eyes and the taller girl reflexively swallowed. 

"I won't quit, don't worry." she said after a while. 

"No, that's not what I--" Nao backtracked, stopped, and then gave up. There was that smile again. It amiably shut down any further conversation. 

The next day, they had afterschool duties instead of morning so they both got to sleep in a bit. After class, they changed into their overalls and got to work poo-picking the paddock, a tedious but necessary job to discourage flies and stop grazing horses from getting parasites.

Souma didn't say a word about last night's conversation. Actually, she barely said anything at all beyond greetings all day which was worrying in its own way. Nao wondered if she'd screwed up by being confrontational. The two of them walked edge of the paddock scooping up individual clumps of horse poop. Well, Souma carried the bucket while Nao shoveled it up. In the middle of the grass, the second years were mounted up and doing some flatwork. 

"Bucket's full." she pointed out after a while. Souma was supposed to go and empty it out at the wheelbarrow, but instead she was hanging around unresponsively and giving Nao the silent treatment. This was really too much, even her little brother and sister would at least make a 'hmph!' sound. Was she really that mad about basically being told to quit? Nao just didn't want to wake up to find an overworked dead body in the bunk beneath hers! "Hey--"

Nao straightened up, getting ready to show this Princess what real confrontation was like. Except, it turned out, Souma wasn't really ignoring her at all. She was watching the senpai ride, watching the way the horses moved. She hadn't heard Nao, because right at that moment, Nao didn't exist. That, and she was wearing a look that just melted all anger away.

 _Ah..._ Nao thought to herself as she observed Souma's face intently. _So that's her real smile._

* * *

**April 2010, Shiratorizawa Academy High School Division**

"Well, isn't this nostalgic?"

Nao leaned on her pitchfork while Fumi-chan was using hers to spread fresh bedding around the stall. 

"What is?" 

"Oh, just... this." Nao gestured vaguely at the goingson. Of the four from their year who graduated out of the middle school club, only her and Fumi-chan continued into high school. Right now, accompanying them were half a dozen other first years, fresh enrollments who were deployed to the other stalls and supervised by the seniors. It was just the beginning of hell for them and it was hard to say who would last the week and who would flake. 

"Nao-chan, we've been cleaning stables since the day we met."

"True." Nao agreed, taking up her fork again to help even out the layer of wood shavings and rice hulls, "But we're first years again. We climbed one ladder and we're now at the bottom of another."

In some distant corner, there was a retching sound and the collective noise of general alarm. "Kuroki-captain! Wada-sensei! Koto-san threw up!"

"And you can't tell me that's not nostalgic." Nao teased.

"Haha, very funny, Nao-chan." Fumi-chan bit her lip, but the very corners of her mouth turned upwards uncontrollably into one of those Real smiles. It'd taken the better part of that first year and no small amount of misadventure for her to really let Nao past that wall. Even if Fumi-chan didn't let everyone in, Nao considered it a point in her favour to be thought of as a real friend, no, a best friend. 

Their captain appeared around the corner, her straight cut brown bangs shifting as she shook her head. "He did his best, he survived one but he couldn't handle the combination of all four in one big pile. Fuyumi, can you help?" 

Hisako-san took the fork from Fumi-chan as her friend made an agreeable noise and exited the stall to offer her assistance. Shortly after, she heard the squeaky wheel of the wheelbarrow creaking under the weight of four horses' worth of night soil. 

"Nao..." 

"Yes, Hisako-senpai?" She poked her head out of the stall. 

The third year was watching the small figure of Fumi-chan quickly wheeling the manure away unaided. "I don't think I will ever stop being surprised at seeing that."

"Is that so? I think I got used to it after the first month and she didn't run away."

Nao busied herself with some other chores, cleaning the muck off the used pitchforks and, by sheer force of habit as a former captain, checked all the stalls again to make sure the first years, that is, her fellow first years had done their job properly. It wasn't that she still thought of herself as captain, but she just couldn't help herself. Second year Maeda Jun-senpai, her own predecessor had laughed and said he'd been the same. It'd taken him a while to get used to not acting like he was in charge. 

A little later, but much sooner than expected, Fumi-chan returned to the stables. She was empty handed because someone else was pushing the wheelbarrow for her. Argh, there he goes again, Aida Senjuro from Class 1. They must have met while he was on the way to practice. Just look at his face, staring at her like a puppy, it was impossible that even someone as self-absorbed as Fumi-chan wouldn't notice. There was that salesman smile again too, doesn't he realise she's just being polite? 

Nao waited until he ran out looking like he hit the jackpot before tsking her friend. "Fumi-chan, it's unseemly to make use of people who can't control their feelings."

"I told him no, but he ran after me and insisted." replied Fumi-chan primly as she washed her face at the sink. "Besides, isn't it even more unseemly to turn down someone when they haven't even said anything to you?"

She made a face that looked kinda like Aida's and said in a low voice, "May I help you with that?" and then, in a parody of her own voice and expression with the salesman dialed up to eleven, said, "I am ever so sorry, I don't feel the same way."

They laughed, Nao more uproariously than Fumi-chan, "What the hell was that?"

"See?"

"Ara, the two of you are looking free."

Second year Fujimoto Sonomi-senpai was standing at the entrance of the stable and glaring severely at the two girls. Jun-senpai had been an easygoing captain in middle school because Sonomi-senpai was the overlord vice captain of the stables. It seemed like being dethroned in high school hadn't changed that one whit.

"The second and third years are having a 'movie night'." she said blandly. Nao and Fumi-chan exchanged a look. 'Movie night' was their way of saying they were reviewing the tapes of the previous competition, in this case, Tohoku's Spring Regionals. Sonomi-senpai tossed them the zipper pouch that made up the club's petty cash and a sheet of paper filled with scribbles. "Go and get us some drinks."

"Eh? But..." Nao protested, looking around. All the other first years had already left. 

"I'm sorry, but did you have more pressing matters on this glorious Saturday?" the ashen-haired senpai asked with her green eyes flashing warnings, "All first years are the same whether you climbed the ladder or just got in through the gates. You don't want people saying you get special treatment or anything, do you?"

They shook their heads with Fumi-chan plucking at her sleeve to quickly go and get the job done. As they headed out, Sonomi-senpai's sharp voice added, "And buy your own drinks too, because the two of you are sitting in with us."

No special treatment, but they get to review the competition with the senpai eh? What a walking load of contradictions Sonomi-senpai was.

* * *

**仙道 直 Sendoh Nao (30 July 1994)**  
Class 3  
Height: 150 cm (as of 2010)  
Weight: 44 kg (as of 2010)  
Likes: Melon Bar  
Current Worries: Being a first year gopher sucks! (╥_╥)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **!! I rewrote this and added another chapter to add a lot more context without trying to look like an infodump! Now with 100% more backstory !!**
> 
> A lot of groundwork being laid here again for later chapters. I intend to touch on the distribution of students and middle school alumni in the future as well as the middle school in general. For the time being, I'll say that a number of the high school club's current members were just seeded from the middle school club, the current count is  
> \- Current club captain Kuroki Hisako  
> \- Second years Maeda Jun (former middle school captain) and Fujimoto Sonomi (former vice captain)  
> \- First years Sendoh Nao (also former middle school captain) and Souma Fuyumi
> 
> An equestrian club that requires the members to take care of the horses is not unusual, but the degree to which Shiratorizawa does it is bordering on agricultural school levels. Keeping labour costs down is partly how they justify keeping such an expensive club open at all (and the middle and high schools have separate paddocks no less!). That said, some schools don't even have their own in-house equestrian facilities and are affiliates with an external riding club, which I guess takes a lot of labour out of the equation.
> 
> There's an Ushijima easter egg in here hahaha. Just y'know, to remind everyone he exists in this story.


	4. April 2010 - Gophers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cut this out and expanded it a bit from the previous version of the last chapter. Just shenanigans hahaha. 
> 
> I switch character POVs quite a bit in the story, but I try to keep the same POV as much as possible in the same chapter (or at least, not more than one). You can usually tell by how the characters think of themselves and address other people around them, but if it's unclear, please let me know, I'll make changes to make it more obvious.

"Ah... already the gopher work has started." Nao-chan complained as they changed out of their soiled coveralls and put them in the laundry hamper for the first years on laundry duty. She grabbed the foldable ecobag from the club room's locker and stuffed it into her pocket. 

Fuyumi looked at the shopping list that Fujimoto-senpai gave them. It wasn't just drinks, but snacks too. Yakisoba-pan, melon-pan, and choco-rolls... dried squid jerky? She looked at her watch, it was the golden time to buy all the food before the other hungry athletics club members arrived in a post-morning-training horde. 

"Nao-chan, we sent the first years on errands like this too. It all comes full circle. "

"Yeah, but never on a Saturday after club duties! If we weren't allowed to sit in on movie night, this would've been considered hazing, I tell you! Hazing!"

Nao-chan puffed out her cheeks. It occurred to the Fuyumi that while her best friend made for a very cool club captain, she was now regressing to a more childish state at the loss of her old authority. Her lower lip was sticking out in an obvious pout.

"So, spending a month doing nearly nothing but clean up after horses is normal, but buying snacks is hazing?" asked Fuyumi with a tincture of amusement. 

"Well of course! The horses can't look after themselves, but the senpai have those long legs and big arms to go and--" she cut off as tall and pretty Naomi Gallo-senpai entered with bespectacled vice captain Aomiya Yayoi. They bowed, hustling out to let the two third years change into their riding gear in privacy.

"That was dangerous." Nao blurted out once they were outside and walking towards the dining and recreation building that stood between the dorms and the classrooms. Her big brown eyes had gone even bigger. Neither senpai were particularly sticklers for seniority, but word could get around.

"Let's just get what we need before the soccer club gets out of practice. They'll eat everything."

There was no such thing as a 'go home club' in Shiratorizawa, every student was required to join a club. Combined with the fact that many students lived in the dorms, the weekends were nearly as lively as weekdays. Walking quickly, but not running, they passed the cheerleading squad doing drills on the grassy quad and shogi players enjoying a few games on the stone benches and tables. Even the engineering and robotics club was outside, testing some remote controlled flying gadget.

The little shop just outside the main dining hall was the closest thing that the school had to a convenience store within campus and was run by a nice old couple who made a fortune on the insatiable appetites of high schoolers. While it carried mostly baked goods of the bread persuasion (hence everyone calling it 'the bread shop'), it also carried a limited assortment of cheap snacks and a few sundries like bandaids. Plus, every girl learned that the old granny always kept a packet or two of 'girl things' stashed away in discreet ziplock bags for an emergency.

At the moment, only a few students were buying snacks at the shop, but sensing the calm before a storm, Nao-chan quickly grabbed whatever was on the list and a packet of crunchy peanut candies.

"My, that's a lot of food for a little lady like you." The little old lady beamed as Fuyumi scrupulously counted out the assortment of loose coins that made up the equestrian club's petty cash for the exact payment.

Supposedly, she made the same joke to everyone, but Fuyumi laughed anyway because it was polite to do so. "It's for our club meeting, obaasan, please give us a receipt."

"And a bag please, if that's okay, obaasan." interjected Nao-chan with her arms full of snacks.

"Nao-chan, you already brought a bag."

"If you put all the drinks in the same bag as the bread, everything will get crushed!"

"Oh... right."

Trust Nao-chan to be detail-oriented even on chores she didn't want to do. Fuyumi mentally reminded herself that she had to make conscious effort to do the same. They thanked bread granny for kindly helping to pack their purchases into one plastic bag and said their goodbyes before heading back out to the row of vending machines lining the side of the building.

In the short period of time that they spent loading up on carbs, a small but disgruntled crowd of anxious first years had already formed and they were dutifully feeding the metal monstrosities their coin tribute in exchange for beverages. Four vending machines seemed pretty extravagant, but the majority of the content were 'essentials' like sports drinks (three flavours) and an assortment of milk, yoghurt and soy options. They didn't all offer the same things either, so Fuyumi and Nao-chan split up to avoid queuing twice.

The entire area was just a cacophony of chattering teenagers and non-stop beeping, rattling change and thumping of drinks being dropped into collection slots.

"Nao-chan!" called Fuyumi from the last vending machine, "They're out of melon flavour, do you want banana instead?"

"If I have to." Nao-chan yelled back. When they finally met back up, Nao-chan shook out the ecobag and held it like a robber demanding money until Fuyumi carefully put the drinks in without denting or shaking their containers unduly. Her friend scowled at the cheerful yellow packet of banana-flavoured milk.

"Cheer up, didn't you say their banana flavour is good too?" Fuyumi attempted to lighten Nao-chan's sour mood, "Anyway, we managed to get everything..."

There was a familiar shriek. "The golden caramel milk! IT'S SOLD OUT! Who!?"

It was Ayu-chan and she was still wielding her tennis racket as she looked around for the culprit.

They should have just walked away and Nao-chan shouldn't have looked into her bag so suspiciously. Ayu-chan, desperate to avoid her senpai's disappointment, advanced threateningly upon them.

"Eh heh heh," said Nao-chan nervously, "Let's just talk this ov-- FUMI-CHAN RUN!"

She swung her bag over her shoulder, grabbed Fuyumi's hand and took off running with Ayu-chan in hot pursuit.

* * *

Further down the block, the volleyball team's first years were completing their Saturday morning jog. When they arrived back outside the gym, Wakatoshi was called inside by captain Hanae so they did some stretches while waiting for him to come back out. As they did so, they watched three girls race down the thoroughfare towards equestrian club room. The tallest girl, dressed in a tennis club jersey, was pursuing the other two furiously while yelling something about milk. The shortest one was practically being dragged and it was only a matter of time before she fell over with a few packets of bread flying out of her flapping plastic bag.

"Oi..." said Eita, his jaw was halfway to his knees as he watched tennis girl execute a jump kick to knock the bobcut girl off her feet and then triumphantly loot through her bag for a can of drink. "Isn't that Nomiya from class 4 and Sendoh from class 3? What kind of girls do you have in your classes?! What about the refinement of looks, brains, and attitude?!"

Hayato rolled his eyes as the two taller girls helped the shortest one to her feet, dusted her off and helped pick up all the fallen bread. "I told you, Eita, that is just Aida's mad fantasy. The Shiratorizawa middle school girls aren't prettier or anything. They're more like Hard Mode, you know? This is a mixed school, but the athletic clubs make the sports girls band together. Once they reach third year, they start looking at boys like intruders, and when they get into high school, they in-doc-tri-nate the new students in their ways."

He interlocked his fingers as if to form an impenetrable barrier or a large herd. "If you want a girlfriend here, try one of the cultural clubs, or the mixed sports clubs. Tennis does cross-training with the girls for doubles. Golf too."

"Lucky bastards." Soekawa Jin breathed, "Why am I in the volleyball club?!"

"Because you got a volleyball scholarship, didn't you, dumbass?" Eita pointed out bluntly.

"Wow!" Jin flicked his sweaty towel at Eita, "Who're you calling a dumbass!"

They bickered a bit, swatting each other with twisted rat tails until Wakatoshi came back out of the gym. He had a hastily emptied sports bag in one hand and the club's piggybank in the other.

"The senpai want drinks." he explained.

In the years to come, the first years on gopher errands would take comfort in the fact that even the great Ushiwaka once had to queue up and fight for prized flavours from vending machines at his senpai's request. A hotly disputed rumour has it that he even lost a packet of Ultra YumYum Liquid Cheesecake to some extremely angry first year with a baseball bat one time. Just a rumour of course, but it was comforting to think that there were things that gave Ushijima pause.

* * *

 **黒木 久子 Kuroki Hisako**  
Class 3 (Third year)  
Height: 158 cm  
Weight: 48 kg  
Likes: Apple pie  
Current worries: Lately it's been getting harder to stay awake in Literature class.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That moment when you remember this story is set in 2010, recreational/hobby drones were just becoming a thing and your character actually thinks of them as 'a flying gadget'. lol.


	5. April 2010 - Contact

It was about a week after school opening and most had settled into the daily routine, classroom duties included. Today, was Fuyumi's turn at attendance and submitting completed handouts to the staffroom. As usual, everyone was in a hurry to get to club activities after school and they left a flurried stack of loose papers on her desk. 

Having already taken the attendance, she began dealing with the mess on her table. She sorted through the sheets, turning each one the right way up and neatly tapping them against her work surface to straighten the pile. Something seemed off though.

Fuyumi flipped through the worksheets again, counting as she went along... sure enough, the stack came up one short. 

"Oh no..." she grumbled under her breath. She looked through the submissions again, checking it against the attendance file to find the missing name.

"Fumi-chan!" Nao-chan poked her head around the door, "Aren't you ready yet? We have to get to training!"

"Oohira-kun forgot to give me his worksheet before leaving, but I don't remember what club he's in!"

"Oohira-kun? Who's that?"

"You know... the tall guy with the tan..."

"Fumi-chan, you just described nearly half the male population in this school. Also everyone is tall to you..."

"Um..." Fuyumi thought for a moment, and then feeling a little rude she added, "He looks like Benkei?"

"Ah! I saw him leaving with Ushijima-kun and Soekawa-kun so he must be in the volleyball club!"

"Thanks Nao-chan! Please tell Wada-sensei I still have class duties!"

To save time, Fuyumi quickly packed her belongings and took the pile of worksheets and the attendance file with her. A walking trot just shy of running took her out of the main building and around the corner to the great arena complex on the west side of the campus. 

Shiratorizawa Academy was a seedbed for sports and academic talent, and many of its clubs nurtured athletes and scholars capable of standing on the national and international stage. But the forefront of that fearsome reputation had to be the boy's volleyball team. As one of the premier teams in the prefecture and it commanded no less than two of the courts in the massive sports arena and when practice time rolled around, the sound of their spartan training regimen echoed like cannons. 

She stood outside the closed door, antsy and impatient to get to her own club. Wada-sensei was a forgiving coach by Shiratorizawa standards, preferring to let the rigours of their club duties iron out the less dedicated, but he could get pretty acerbic if he thought you weren't taking training seriously. 

"Hey, little miss, are you looking for someone?" 

A head poked out of the window above her before opening the door. There was only an added elevation of three steps between them, but even without the boost he stood head and shoulders above her. It was a third year giant with short light brown hair and eyes who looked like he could crush coconuts between his grapefruit thighs, but from the way he smiled, he was a friendly giant? She gaped at him a bit before remembering her manners. 

"Yes senpai!" she bowed between greetings, "I'm Souma, first year class 4. I'm looking for Oohira-kun!"

"Oohira? One moment."

He stepped back into the court as quick and light as a cat despite his lumbering size and in short order, Oohira-kun appeared. Some other heads peeped from the windows with whispers of, "What? A girl?" "She's so small!" "What with this first year Romeo, extra dives for talking to girls during training!" 

Oohira-kun very definitely heard that last one because he looked nervous as he asked, "Souma-san? What brings you here? Oh..." 

His round eyes fell upon the papers tucked under her arm, sheepish understanding dawning on his face. "Ah... I forgot! I'm so sorry Souma-san!" he apologised, "Let me get it from my bag!"

He ran back in, leaving the door ajar while she waited. The late afternoon sun cast a warm, but somewhat blinding arc of light that shone unhindered by the eaves of the building. 

"Oohira has to go to the lockers to get his stuff. Little miss, did you want to watch?" It was the giant senior again. "If you take off your shoes you can stand just inside."

Spring wasn't scorching by any means, but it was quite glaring. "Thank you, senpai. Then, please let me impose..." 

She did as he offered and left her shoes by the door, entering carefully in her socks. The white-haired head coach barely gave her a glance as she offered him a low bow and apologies for interrupting, but he yelled at his team to stop getting distracted. Unlike his convocation of big and powerful eagles, Coach Washijou was surprisingly compact, about the same size and build as Wada-sensei, but he held complete, unquestioned authority over the men and boys who towered over him. 

Regular students would occasionally toss volleyballs around as part of exercise during gym class, and it wasn't unusual for the girls to play a light game of passing during lunch too. But this was well and truly on a whole other level. In one court, the seniors were taking turns playing a furious game with a team of college students. In the other court, the second years were helping to instruct the first years through their drills. If practice sounded like cannons a hundred yards away outside, the noise reverberated on the inside along with the falling bodies to recreate a warzone!

Fuyumi spotted Oohira-kun on the other side of the gym, frantically waving the missing sheet of paper at her as he sprinted down the court. She waved back, as a matter of course, her hand reached out in a bid to get hold of his late submission just a few seconds faster. 

Badump! Boom! Badump! Boom! BLAM!

Focussed as she was on her classmate, she wasn't really looking at the other players at all. But a flash of movement made her twitch-- 

Much later, under the influence of a painkiller and a quiet moment to reflect, she could probably say that it happened something like this: at the corner of her eye, Ushijima Wakatoshi rose like Godzilla over the net on the far side and spiked a ball at some other boy who had his hands up in a desperate attempt to block. The spinning projectile glanced off his arm with alarming force, hit the floor and continued at a still dangerous velocity towards...

Her outstretched hand caught the stray ball. Or, at least Fuyumi was sure she did, her fingertips and palm definitely grasped the familiar texture of leather, but its vicious trajectory was not to be denied by such a half-hearted resistance! 

There were spots dancing in her eyes around the scattered papers. Weird... She was sure she was holding on to them just a second ago, but now they were fluttering around as if she'd flung them carelessly through the air. Actually, she seemed a lot closer to the ground than usual. Did she fall down?

She could hear a clamour of male voices all around her, Coach Washijou and his assistant coach were looking over her with concern while the younger man yelled for ice. She could make out somebody, probably Oohira-kun yelling "Souma-san!" repeatedly. She was also vaguely aware of someone else exclaiming wildly, "Wow, Wakatoshi, you made her punch herself!" 

Did that really happen? Her hand was stinging, both front and back, but not as much as the acute throbbing of her face. Her nose felt full of something and she couldn't really breathe very well, but she felt someone support her slumped sitting posture and lean her forward. Red spots stained her white blazer in a slow drip. Oh noooo.....

The unfamiliar voices above the ring of sports shoes were pitched to carry.

"Ehh... that looks bad."

"Ushiwaka, you brute!"

"Oi, Ushiwaka, if you disfigure her, you have to take responsibility, you know?"

"Yeah." That sounded like Ushijima-kun. Wait, don't just blindly agree to something like 'take responsibility', what is wrong with you?

"What are you saying, Ono? You think this is some kind of shoujo manga? Don't listen to him, Ushiwaka! You're too young to be married! Just say you're sorry, okay?"

Gnarled and wrinkled fingers carefully probed her face as Coach Washijou ascertained her injury with a deft and experienced hand. "Bruised, but not broken." he grunted. "Don't worry, girl, it's nothing permanent."

"Ohhh lucky!" 

"Shut up, Tendou. Since you're so invested in this, you and Ushijima can take her to the nurse's station. Oohira, pick up those papers and take them to your homeroom teacher, who was it, Morita-sensei? Right. The rest of you, get back to practice, this isn't a circus show." 

A frozen gel pack wrapped in a towel, was swiftly applied to her face, the sudden pressure making her wince. The cold was soothing though, and it helped to take the edge off the pain of blunt force trauma. She held on to it as instructed and kept her head down where she saw nothing but tall shadows and quickly dispersing shoes that were replaced by a broad back and outstretched hands.

"Sorry." said Ushijima-kun as he wordlessly offered to piggyback her to the nurse's office. 

"Yeah, I'm sorry, Souma-san. If I hadn't forgotten, you wouldn't have had to come all the way here... I'm really sorry, Souma-san!" Oohira-kun, who was on the verge of tears, was crouching and scooping up the scattered worksheets. He kept dipping his head at her like a foraging chicken.

"Id obgay... axe-dint..." she replied lamely. Was it really okay, though? The towel was turning red from her bloody nose.

"Hey, you're pretty gutsy, you know that?"

A pair of downturned eyes and dark red pupils came into view along as a lanky first year slipped around her left side and grabbed her arm to help her to her feet. He must be the 'Tendou' whom Coach Washijou was talking to. 

"Wad... wad d'you mean?" she asked as she climbed onto Ushijima-kun's back with one arm around his neck and the other still holding the ice pack to her face. Even though they were both first years, his back and shoulders were already broad and steady, undaunted by her weight. He carried her as easily as any horse did. Not that she should have been surprised at his strength, look at what his spike did to her face. 

"Ehh... most girls would be crying right now, getting POW'D in the face like that!" Tendou-kun made a swift right hook in the air while bending down to pick up her things. He didn't blink a lot as he stared at her, frankly, it was the most intense stare that Fuyumi had ever seen. He looked like he was watching her every minute reaction to see how she would respond. 

She, on the otherhand, blinked slowly because too much facial activity right now hurt and considered her reply. "Can'd... cry... nid mouf to breathe..."

The tiny grin on Tendou-kun's face split into a full fledged one as he cackled in agreement. "You've got a point there!"

Ushijima-kun started walking, his gait surprisingly smooth despite her being latched to his back like a koala. Whatever the case, it was clear he was doing his best to avoid jostling her, for which she was grateful because every movement was already causing her face to throb in tandem. 

Their tiny first-aid procession gathered no small number of stares as it made its way through the back door of the gym and towards the central building where the school nurse, Kambe-sensei, took one look at Fuyumi's face and shook her head exasperatedly. She sat Fuyumi on the bed and replaced the towel and ice pack with a fresh one while Ushijima-kun explained what happened and Tendou-kun deposited her belongings and shoes nearby. 

"What club are you in?" the stout and matronly lady asked Fuyumi, taking in her small build, "Cheerleading?"

Somehow the way she said it seemed a little offensive. What did this woman think happened? That she was hanging around the volleyball club to look at boys? 

"E--eg---", Fuyumi never realised how hard it was to say a long word like 'equestrian' with a bloodied nose, finally settling for "Horze ridin'..."

"Oh..." Kambe-sensei turned and picked up the phone to make a call, "Wada-sensei? I've got one of your first years here with a bloody nose... Yes, Souma. Took a ball to the face. No, no she's fine. Two days is fine. Thank you."

She put down the phone. "Well, Souma-kun, you can go back to class tomorrow. But two days off club. No training, no duties."

"Wad?" Fuyumi sputtered, "Bud... bud..."

"No buts! Do you have any idea how much bacteria you're in contact with in a dirty stable? An infection is no joke! Two days, otherwise if you come back here with an infection, it'll be at least five!"

Fuyumi slumped, defeated by medical logic, unable to nod, she relented with another nasal sounding "Ogay..."

She sat sullenly on the bed, suddenly aware that Ushijima-kun and Tendou-kun were still standing there. The truth was she was feeling a little angry at missing training but what was the point in blowing up at them? 

"Danks you du..." she said, relieved that the towel on her face meant she didn't have to offer a smile. She definitely wasn't feeling up to it right now. Instead she looked at the stained shoulder of his gym shirt. Her blood had dripped on him on the way to the office and the cotton effectively wicked the red fluid away and spread it quickly so that he looked like someone had tried to knife him in the back.

"Yer zhirt..." she gestured with her free hand. "I kin..."

"It gets dirty all the time, your offer is unnecessary." he refused flatly. He really didn't need to use the word 'unnecessary' though. Ayu-chan was right, he was rude, but despite that, he in turn offered (however stoney-faced) to have *her* uniform cleaned and then persisted in squeezing in one more apology.

"I am sorry about what happened. Please feel better and send me the bill." He bowed dutifully again before leaving. Tendou-kun waved at her with a cheery "See you later!" as he rounded the door. 

Fuyumi languished on the bed. By now the bleeding had stopped and Kambe-sensei had given her something for the pain. She had absolutely nothing to do, but sit upright and close her eyes and rest until the door slid open again.

"Souma-kun, are you okay?" Morita-sensei asked worriedly as soon as he got his feet through the threshold. Clearly, Oohira-kun had told him what happened and he came as quickly as he could. His thick caterpillar eyebrows were writhing on his face so that he looked like a deeply concerned beagle.

A little tired of talking, she gave him a slight nod and immediately regretted it. 

"That looks bad, I'll call your parents and..."

As if struck by lightning, Fuyumi whipped the icepack off her face, her homeroom teacher wincing at the sight. That just made her feel worse, but she forcefully pleaded, "Plis... don gall dem... ah'm fine."

"Souma-kun, I can't do that. You had an accident, I have to let them know."

"No, plis, zensei!"

"I'm sorry, Souma-kun, but that's my duty as your teacher. We'll sort out whatever happens after, but I still have to call them."

Nao-chan came from club activities to fetch her back to the dorms and helped her change out of her bloody clothes. Fuyumi took another painkiller and lay in her bed unable to rest despite the drugs out of pure existential dread.

As expected, upon receiving Morita-sensei's call, Okaasama had raced down to school, sweeping everything up and into her own pace like a storm, Coach Washijou, Ushijima-kun and the other boy who had missed the ball all apologised for the lapse, and then Morita-sensei had to apologise just because. And Oohira-kun apologised as well.

Fuyumi heard about it a little later in the evening when Nao-chan brought her dinner of simple egg porridge in their room, describing a row of grown men and boys bobbing up and down in deep bows even though it was, ultimately, her fault. She should have just waited outside instead of entering the gym. 

"Your mom is as terrifying as usual." Nao-chan groaned as she watched Fuyumi eat, "But don't worry, I managed to ward her off. Told her you were sleeping. You were sleeping, right?"

Fuyumi shrugged. She finished her porridge, thanked Nao-chan for cleaning up after her and then she pulled the privacy curtain around her bunk so that her friend could study in peace. Her eyes were still a little sensitive to the light, but she looked at her phone anyway. There were a bunch of frantic messages, some from Ayu-chan and Nao-chan. But the last, as expected, was from her mother. 

**It's not even a month into the term and you're already having an accident. Maybe you should rethink staying in a sports club for high school? It would be unthinkable for you to have scars on your face. We're very worried.**

Her slim fingers tightened around the plastic casing. This wasn't even because of that, but clearly the level of relevance was only tangential to her mother's main point of interest.

**Thank you for your concern, Okaasama. I am taking as good care of myself as I can, I am sorry to have missed your visit and worried you with this unfortunate mishap and will be more careful in future.**

She shut the phone and put it aside, ignoring it when she felt it vibrate against the mattress. 

Three years, she just had three more years left.

* * *

**森田 勇介 Morita Yuusuke (1 April 1980)**  
Class 4, Homeroom teacher  
Height: 173 cm  
Weight: 57 kg  
Likes: Steamed gyoza  
Worries: Maybe he's not strict enough, his students don't seem to take him very seriously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this story just so I could have someone get hit in the face by a ball and not play it off as just a gag joke *stare Hinata*. Well, not entirely, but this was definitely one of The Scenes that the story was built on. Thank god Ushijima's just a first year in this, else her nose would've been broken.


	6. April 2010 - Rumours and false faces

_Ushiwaka hit a girl._

It was a whisper that circulated in idle chatter, a statement so absurd that nobody in their right mind would have believed it, but its unbelievable nature somehow compelled one pair of lips to pass it on to the next closest ear. Nobody really believed it, but then an angry parent showed up at the school office and Coach Washijou, Ushiwaka and two other first years were called into the office along with Morita-sensei. It loaned credence to the whisper, turning it into the dull hum of high school gossip.

_Ushiwaka hit a girl. No, he threw a ball at her. No, they say she got punched?! It was Souma-san from Class 4!  
_

The next day, Souma Fuyumi emerged from her dorm room with the biggest black eye anyone had ever seen on a girl. Her fellow residents stared, horrified as she shuffled to the common pantry at 5 AM where a bare handful students were trying to fit in an early breakfast before training. As a school rich in athletes, the small rectangular bags of dark blue refrigerant gel were a staple in the dormitory freezer alongside half-eaten boxes of ice cream. Fuyumi helped herself to one frozen pack and, heedless of her impromptu audience, wrapped the stiff blue parcel in a face towel and clapped it to her face with a relieved sigh. 

"Good morning." she greeted the other occupants in the room politely before taking a banana and retreating back to her room. 

Hasegawa Rin's eggs started to char before she hurriedly took the pan off the stove. At the kitchen counter in his soccer jersey, Honda Jouji realised he overfilled his bowl with cornflakes and sheepishly spooned them back into the box. Other first years started putting their heads together.

"No way, right?"

"Maybe she got it at club practice?"

"She rides horses! If a horse did something to give her a black eye, she'd be in hospital!"

The buzz started up again and died just as quickly as the volleyball first years entered the common area as one flock. It became apparent that something wasn't quite right, but nobody dared to breathe a word to them as they stopped only long enough to share a box of cereal bars and fill their water bottles before leaving.

The pre-dawn spring air was nice and cool, with a hint of petrichor from last night's brief shower. Pedestrians were sparse this early in the morning and most of them were first years en route to club duties and morning training. The boys unwrapped their bars and started chowing down on their slow walk to the gym.

"Hey," said Jin around a mouthful of puffed barley and dried apricot, "Is it just me or is something kinda off today?"

Eita gnawed on his own breakfast bar, glancing from side to side at the other students who were sharing the road with them. It wasn't unusual for people, especially girls, to look at them or at least Wakatoshi in particular, but this was the first time he ever felt like they were legit just staring and keeping their distance. "They're burning holes in my back. Jin, Wakatoshi. What happened yesterday after you guys got called to the office?"

"I said I was sorry, and then uh..." Jin recounted with the latter nodding along, but then as if recalling something awful, the brown-haired boy wilted with a hint of terror, "Souma-san's mother is scary, like an S, I thought she was going to make me kiss her feet and then shake down my whole family for the medical fees. She even stared down Waka! But Coach and Kambe-sensei assured her that the injury was superficial and wouldn't leave any scarring so she let us go. "

The lady who sat in the office was dressed in a business suit and had an air about her that reminded Wakatoshi a little of his own maternal grandmother - dignified with enough pride to make her seem bigger than she really was and was used to having her way. Even though she was dwarfed by him, a boy the same age as her daughter, the short woman with long black hair and tilted coal black eyes looked up at him completely undaunted and icy with a kind of frosty anger instead of a fiery temper. Wakatoshi could deal with explosive, his entire world was full of his hotblooded peers and coaches and most of them had passions bubbling close to the surface, but the nearly reptilian glare of Souma's mother made his skin crawl even if he would never admit it. She had smiled coldly after listening to all the explanations and made it clear the only reason she wasn't making a bigger fuss was because she could acknowledge the fact that it was, at the end of the day, a real accident and her daughter's precious face was not permanently harmed. 

The wingspiker wasn't known for his familiarity with the opposite sex and general social interaction, but he at least knew the importance of a girl's looks, so he made sure to bow appropriately low while apologising. To be honest, he couldn't really recall Souma's face from memory even though he saw her less than 24 hours ago and was sure he had also seen her around in middle school. It was difficult to discern an appearance with an ice pack and bruises in the way. He guessed, however, that she probably looked like her mother. What an unnerving thought.

"Man, trust you guys to run afoul of the girl with the scariest parent... isn't her family rich? Heard her mom rolled up in some foreign car. What if they're Yakuza?"

"Whaaaat? No way, they own Uma-Para Food Paradise. You know, that big department store a couple of blocks from Sendai Station..."

"Woah, Hayato, really? I like their DIY American Dog station, the one at the basement with the all-you-can-add condiments."

"Satori, you're being unusually quiet."

"Hmm? No, I was just thinking."

"You? Thinking? Now *that's* scary."

Laughing nervously, the volleyball first years finished their bars and threw the wrappers away before entering the gym for some warm-ups. They had no idea what was awaiting later the day.

* * *

"It looks worse than it feels." said Fuyumi as she sat in the class and left herself subject to Ayu-chan's intense and furious scrutiny. Her friend didn't live in the dorms so she hadn't seen the aftermath of the accident in person, but no doubt Nao-chan had sent her a picture because Fuyumi's phone had exploded with messages soon after. Last night had been an ordeal, her face ached profusely and her nose felt all crusty with dried blood inside so she had to keep breathing through her mouth.

Come morning, though, it really wasn't as bad as it could have been, she told herself as she gingerly dabbed her face with a wet towel to wash up. The bruise under her eye was a deep purple splotch like a tanuki's eye-marks, but the edges had faded a bit to a yellow-brown shade. She also woke up with a slightly dry throat as a result of all the mouth-breathing and the area around her nose still throbbed, but most of that had subsided after breakfast.

"You see? She keeps saying that." said Nao frustratedly, "I told her to stay in the room until I got back from club duties, instead she went out to get food! Then I asked her to wait until you got in so you could help apply some concealer, but she snuck out while I was having a shower! Fumi-chan, do you know how many people you've freaked out today with that face of yours?"

"Nao-san is right, Fuyumi-san," Hasegawa-san chimed in from the next desk, her short chestnut hair bouncing as she shook her head in disbelief "I was shocked this morning when you just came into the kitchen like that! How did this happen? Everyone's saying Ushi-- someone hit you! Who would've thought..."

"It was just an accident." moaned Fuyumi only half listening as she uselessly tried to fend off Ayu-chan's cosmetic assault, "I was getting in the way. Ayu-chan, please stop, your concealer doesn't match me."

"Your eye doesn't match your face! Now hold still."

In the end, before Nao-chan went to her own classroom, they succeeded in dabbing on what allegedly passed for some sort of camouflage. Her face felt heavier than when they started.

It was just a couple of minutes to first period so she retrieved her textbooks just as the door slid open and Oohira-kun came rushing in. He stopped in front of her desk, looking intently at her with no small amount of confusion. "Ah... Souma-san, are you feeling okay today? Your face looks diff-- err... better, you can't even see the bruise!"

"No thanks to you boys," Ayu-chan snapped peevishly, shooing him away from Fuyumi's seat like a rabid guard dog. She whirled around and gave Fuyumi a bright smile, "Never you mind, Fumi-chan. You look lovely."

Fuyumi hadn't looked in a mirror yet, but apparently she had trusted too much in Ayu-chan's determination to cover the bruise up. Because of Oohira-kun's expression, she immediately took out the small compact from her school bag and looked. In the space of 5 minutes, she'd gone from 'half-tanuki' to 'probably got a bad spray tan'. Her eye didn't match her face? Now her face didn't match the rest of her! Was this supposed to be an improvement? "Ayu-chan, this--"

"Class has started!" announced Morita-sensei as he marched into the room and did a double-take when he saw her at her seat. The poor man looked torn, as if feeling like he should let her excuse herself and yet knowing that it wasn't right to disrupt the lesson. To throw him a bone, she studiously looked down and opened her textbook as if nothing was wrong, but as the lesson finished and the next teacher entered, the weird looks continued all the way till lunch time.  
  


* * *

  
"That's why, I'm telling you, we're sorry!" protested Ayu-chan as they carried their trays to the table where Nao-chan was supposed to meet them, "We really thought it was better than the black eye!"

Fuyumi, having earlier managed to remove the heavy layer of make-up in washroom, simply replied, "I didn't say that I was angry. I just wish you'd listened to me..."

She trailed off. Something really odd was going on. Nao-chan wasn't at her seat, instead she was with one of the new riding club recruits, Hojo Akira-kun, and they were arguing furiously with two boys, Yamagata Hayato-kun and Soekawa-kun from the volleyball club. The other boy's volleyball first years were there as well, and none of them looked happy, in fact some of them looked downright angry as they clustered protectively around Ushijima-kun.

"I don't know what you're talking about." said Nao-chan, "Why would I say something like that?"

"You tell me! Maybe Souma really wasn't okay with getting pelted by a ball and told you to say it! It wasn't Wakatoshi's fault, but he already apologised, what more do you want?"

Ayu-chan and Fuyumi exchanged looks, putting their food down on the nearest table and pushing their way to the front of a growing crowd. "Nao-chan, what's happening?"

"Ah, the victim herself!" proclaimed Yamagata-kun, "How about you just tell us what you told your friend and probably half the dorm?"

Absolutely perplexed by the sudden sharpness of his tone, Fuyumi looked at Yamagata-kun and then at the stony-faced Ushijima-kun before finally settling on Nao-chan who shrugged helplessly. "I'm afraid, I don't understand." she said slowly.

"Everyone was being really weird today," said Soekawa-kun "All that staring and whispering. Nobody dared to say what was up to Waka's face except Aida."

Indeed, if the volleyball boys looked angry, Aida-kun, held back by Oguro-kun and Yamazaki-kun, still looked ready to start a fist fight.

"Souma-san," interjected Oohira-kun after Fuyumi's confusion and Yamagata-kun's anger twisted into an uncomfortable stalemate, "Everyone is saying that Wakatoshi hit you."

"...what?"

Her bruise hurt, but probably not as much as the headache that was promising to ensue from this completely random turn of events. She just wanted to have lunch and ice her face. Why was this even happening?

* * *

**合田 仙寿郎 Aida Senjuro (3 August 1994)**  
Class 1  
Height: 171 cm  
Weight: 63 kg  
Likes: His mom's Taco-wieners  
Current worries: Ahhh~~ Fuyumi-chan! How could someone do that to her?!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ushijima is really hard to write because he's so damn taciturn. Like, he's expressive in his own way, but I need to find that sweet spot where he's not a complete Drax. Please bear with me while I find his voice without spilling too much tea too quickly. I swear I have it somewhere and it'll get better.


	7. April 2010 - The Telephone Game

What does one do when confronted with an ugly situation?

Imagine the ridiculousness of being falsely accused of making a false accusation against someone. This entire mess was on a level so meta that Fuyumi wanted nothing more than for the ground to swallow everyone. About three dozen eyes were locked on her now, expecting an explanation that she was neither in a position to nor obligated to give. Her mind was racing, trying to shake off the weight of the stares as she tried to figure out what to do.

_"Don't stand there and cry, Fuyumi. You're small, like me, so the longer you stand around letting people look down at you, the more useless you appear. People who are in charge sit down, everyone else has to stand and listen to them."  
_

The harsh words delivered in her mother's voice grated at her, and critical though it may be, it felt like sound advice at this time. She palmed her forehead and asked quietly, "I'm sorry, may I sit down first?"

Nobody was going to deny her a seat, not with that pitiful look of long-suffering on her bruised face. A chair was pulled out from one of the tables and she lowered herself into it with a sigh. She hadn't expected much else to change, but just the act of getting a little more comfortable somehow helped to make the entire debacle feel a little more manageable.

"I'm really sorry that everyone is so upset." Fuyumi said simply, bowing lightly in her seat, "But this is absolutely insane, are you even listening to yourselves? What reason would Ushijima-kun have to hit me? Did anyone even ask why?"

The steam engine of gossip that had so contentedly chugged along the track of bored and overly excitable teenagers wobbled on its rails. As if expecting someone else to speak for them, the motley mob looked between themselves, but no reason was forthcoming and they deflated a bit. Fuyumi wondered if it was too much to hope that was all she needed to defuse the situation.

"You're just dodging the issue here." interjected Tendou-kun, who had up until now been observing all the participants with those roving eyes of his, "Fumi-tan --may I call you Fumi-tan?"

He blithely ignored Nao-chan and Ayu-chan's outraged squeaks, neither did he wait for her assent at calling her such a nickname before continuing on, "Anyway, Fumi-tan. The only people to see what happened was you'n us in the club. Someone musta said something first and now everyone is repeating it even if it's a lie."

So the boys would never accidentally open a can of worms like this, only girls gossiped like sparrows, right? She was the victim here, she had the black eye to prove it, but saying that would just make it look like she was justifying it. Across the crowd, Fuyumi looked at Ushijima-kun, his expression seemed as stoic as ever, but something about the way the corners of his broad mouth turned nearly imperceptibly downwards suggested he was at least upset by what was going on. In a way, he was in the same situation as her, probably worse because that sort of rumour could destroy a future. _"Fix this"_ his eyes seemed to demand. Even if it was not her fault, he wanted and needed someone (her) to make it right. Plus, any moment now, a teacher was going to walk in and then everyone was going to be in trouble.

_"Fuyumi... if something is very troublesome you don't have to deal with it alone, you know?"_

_Her father squatted on the floor next to her as the maid swept up the broken shards of Okaasan's favourite vase. Face to face with his daughter, his mouth split into a grin and said, "You make it someone else's problem."_

_In the end, they blamed the dog and Okaasan believed them._

So... let's make it someone else's problem.

"Alright, Tendou-kun." she said as placatingly as she could, "Perhaps I may have said something carelessly last night."

The boys relaxed. Clearly they had been expecting her to hotly deny any involvement till her dying day. Tendou-kun fixed his attention on her, his blood red eyes like pin points as he stared at her face. Was he searching for a lie? He couldn't even tell when she was telling the truth!

"But I cannot apologise without knowing what exactly I may have said that caused this," she continued contritely, "So that I'll be more careful in future, may I ask what exactly people have been saying? Everyone keeps saying that Ushijima-kun hit me, but I think there's a bit more detail than that involved. How did he hit me?"

"I heard that Ushiwaka spiked a ball at you." volunteered someone in the crowd.

"I heard he punched you!" said someone else.

"Thank you, is that all?"

Heads bobbed in repeated nods around her. Good, now that she had the lead on, it was time to lunge the horse.

"How many of you heard that Ushijima-kun spiked a ball at me?"

A bunch of hands went up. 

"Alright, who did you hear it from?"

The raised hands angled at a few others and those others pointing to three other kids who pointed at Hojo-kun who in turn was pointing at Nao-chan.

Her best friend scowled, folding her arms as she enunciated each word slowly, "All I told Akira-kun yesterday was that 'Fumi-chan got hit by one of Ushijima-kun's spikes'. How did you turn that into assault?!"

_Fumi-chan got hit by one of Ushijima-kun's spikes._

_Fuyumi-chan was hit by Ushijima-kun's spike._

_Ushijima-kun's spike hit Souma-san._

_Souma-san was hit after Ushiwaka spiked a ball at her. It hit her in the face! Did you see the bruise?_

_Ushiwaka spiked a ball at Souma-san's face!_

_Ushiwaka hit Souma-san's face with a ball!_

_Ushiwaka hit Souma-san!_

Everyone in this room must have heard some variation of that. Silence and awkward shuffling. On hindsight, it was clear how such an unintentionally ambiguous piece of information could have turned malicious. Someone in the crowd coughed and there were mumbles of "Sorry, Sendoh-san." But now that Nao-chan had thrown the yoke of suspicion off her own back, she was on the hunt for the real culprit. She glared all around.

"So who was it who said that Ushijima-kun punched Fumi-chan because I never said anything like that! In the first place, it never even happened!"

There were murmurs and nods of assent in the crowd.

"Well?" Ayu-chan demanded, "The lot of you, who told you that Ushijima-kun punched Fumi-chan?"

A bunch of hands (some of them repeat participants!) pointed at Aida's trio, who in turn pointed to another pair of boys on the soccer team, and they in turn looked wildly around... and pointed at the culprit.

Tendou blinked, looking at the two fingers in his face and then gestured at himself. "Eh? Me?"

Semi Eita who had, up until this point, been listening with bemusement clapped his hands together as if suddenly realising something. "Ah... Satori, yesterday at dinner, you were telling me about what happened. You said... what was it...? Oh."

He cleared his throat and in a very very poor imitation of Tendou's mercurial and excitable tones said, "I'm telling you, Semi-semi! You should have been there! It was like a robo-punch! An Ushi-punch! POW! And then Souma just went flying!"

The two boys nodded vigorously with mumbles of "Yeah, that's right, we were sitting behind him when he said that!"

Three dozen pairs of eyes re-oriented themselves towards Tendou-kun for explanation. Now the boot was on the other foot and he sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. "I-- I did say that, didn't I?"

The volleyball first years folded their arms in disgusted silence watching as their team mate winked comically and stuck his tongue out in an attempt to display ingenuousness, "Eheh... I may have said something carelessly?"

Her soft words and polite tone just sounded irritating when parroted by the rowdy-looking boy. Ayu-chan nudged her and whispered loudly, "Fumi-chan, I think it's okay to hit him."

It was certainly tempting after all he put her through today, but Fuyumi took a deep breath and shook her head, "It's fine."

"Are you sure, Fuyumi-san?" asked Hasegawa-san sceptically, "I think even one smack will do you good!"

"I'm sure would be extremely gratifying but..."

She tilted her head at the stony statue that now cast a shadow over a quaking Tendou. There was a very loud sound as Ushijima-kun, having finally lost his patience, gave his team mate a right slap to the head. "I think Ushijima-kun has enough armpower for the two of us."

* * *

"Geez! I can barely move my elbows! Why are you boys sitting with us?" complained Nao-chan. She and Ayu-chan looked cramped and irritated, nudging a bit of space for herself. While Tendou-kun nursed the huge lump on top of his head (courtesy of a real Ushi-punch), and people awkwardly delivered apologies to both Ushijima-kun and herself, the volleyball and soccer first years pushed three tables together and they squeezed into the seats for their long-awaited lunch.

"If we're sitting together, then it looks like we weren't fighting, right?" said Soekawa-kun. He put a piece of his grilled chicken on her plate by way of peace-making. "I'm sorry I jumped to conclusions."

"Yeah, I'm sorry."

"We're sorry."

They started passing food back and forth as if by way of apology, except they weren't just putting food on her and Nao-chan and Ushijima-kun's plates, but to each other as well. In a matter of minutes they were arguing about pushing unwanted carrots around.

"Satori," Yamagata-kun scolded, "You caused this mess. Aren't you going to say you're sorry?"

Sitting across from Fuyumi, Tendou-kun rested his chin on the table and watched her owlishly. Perhaps, like some kind of wild animal, he sensed a kindred spirit. She did sort of play him.

"I'm sure Tendou-kun is already very sorry." she said, transferring a piece of simmered potato into his bowl in an attempt to show good-will. "Let's just eat."

"Fumi-tan..."

"Yes, Tendou-kun?"

"You're sure good at pretending, aren't you, Fumi-tan?"

Her chopsticks and her smile froze midway between their trays. The potato slipped between the two pieces of wood and dropped on the table with a 'plop'. What was this? Was he not going to accept peace? Was he determined to pick a fight with her now?

"O- oi! Satori! What are you saying!"

"That's rude, Tendou-kun! What in the wo--"

"I'm just saying... I've been thinking this since yesterday... you're really good at getting people to do things for you, Fumi-tan. Someone hits you in the face, but you don't cry or get mad. Someone starts a fight and you stay totally calm. Or at least, you don't _appear_ to get angry. Other people get angry for you. But actually, you're really angry yourself right now, aren't you--Mmf!"

Oohira-kun quickly clamped Tendou-kun's mouth. There was a brief clamour as Nao-chan looked like she was about to dive across the table but Fuyumi grabbed her shoulder with her left hand and shook her head.

"Sorry, Souma-san! This guy is just like this!" said Oohira-kun, struggling to keep his friend under control. When Tendou-kun tried to wriggle his face out of Oohira-kun's fingers, Semi-kun added his own hand with a slap. "C'mon, don't be stubborn and settle down!"

There was something about the way he said it. Even though he was being gagged on both sides by Oohira-kun and Semi-kun, the corners of his wide carnelian eyes crinkled in a grin. _"I'm right, aren't I? Aren't I? I guessed right?"_ they seemed to say.

He wasn't wrong. She wanted nothing more than to add her own lump to his head, but it wasn't a thing that she should do.

_Hitting someone, getting aggressive, that just gives immediate gratification. Don't lose your temper, don't be impulsive, don't act like the world owes you anything, because it doesn't.  
_

Irritating though he was, Fuyumi felt some measure of discomfort and respect that this near stranger had read her so impressively. It was clear that he wasn't about to let this go until he got the response he wanted and fed whatever compulsion he ran on, so she put her rice and chopsticks down to meet his gaze.

"You're right, Tendou-kun." she said more mildly than she felt, "I am very angry."

Silence. For Fuyumi's part, having said all she intended to say, she picked up her bowl and chopsticks again.

"Nao-chan," whispered Ayu-chan over her head, "I think that's the first time Fumi-chan has ever admitted to being angry!"

"...I thought it would be less scary if she admitted it, but now it's kinda scary. She butchered Tendou-kun with her eyes! Serial-killer Fumi-chan."

Her friends put their yogurt cups next to hers, "Don't be angry, Fumi-chan, have our dessert! Be peaceful! Zen!"

A big hand moved across her field of vision, confiscating Tendou-kun's yogurt and depositing it on her tray.

"He's very sorry." said Ushijima-kun. It was probably the first thing he said to her since yesterday. "And thank you, Souma Fumiko."

Yamagata-kun spat out his soup, thankfully back into his own bowl. "Wakatoshi!" he coughed out between laughs, "At least get the name right! It's Fuyumi!"

"...But they keep calling her Fumi..." A heavy brow wrinkled "Sorry, Souma Fuyumi."

He added his own dessert cup to the growing stack on her tray. The tension had gone out of his face, his expression once again implacably unreadable, but somehow that added a sense of normalcy to the table. It was difficult to hold on to that sort of anger after that so she started transferring the impossible-to-finish pile of chicken strips to him in exchange for the dessert. One peace offering for another.

"Sure."

* * *

 **北条 昭 Hojo Akira (28 February 1995)**  
Class 2  
Height: 168 cm  
Weight: 64 kg  
Likes: Consomme potato chips  
Current Worries: Since he moved into the dorms, he misses his dog "Ponta".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's okay, Ushiwaka, sometimes in my own head I also accidentally call her Fumiko. XD


	8. May 2010 - A Kouhai's Crisis

Fuyumi's bruises had long vanished by the time May rolled around and out of the half-dozen recruits that the club had managed to garner, only one stayed. This weekend, while the senpai were away for Spring Interhigh Qualifiers, they celebrated Hojo-kun's survival through hell-month with an extended walk on the horses around campus. Hojo Akira-kun, with his flat-topped haircut stuffed under a helmet, already stood out like a beanpole next to Fuyumi and Nao-chan and he fared little better at blending in while mounted. 

Despite three weeks of getting the basics down, he still looked a little nervous being outside the safety of the paddock, but his mount, Kiki, was reassuringly experienced with new riders. Sure-footed with an intelligent eye, the black mare, looked like she was taking him for a walk rather than the other way around. For added security, Nao-chan rode on white-splashed Oreo next to his outside leg to follow-up on instructions with Fuyumi keeping watch from behind on dappled Montblanc while ponying their fourth, Marutaro, on a short lead. 

"You're tensing up, Akira-kun. Your back is going to hurt if you keep up that rigid posture."

"Sorry, Sendoh-san."

"And watch your heels, they're going too high and you're starting to dig too deep into the stirrups."

Moving at a leisurely pace, the three first years circled the inside perimeter of the massive Shiratorizawa school grounds, including the middle school division where they stopped by their old paddock to say hello to the kouhai and their old club horses. Unlike their high school club that stabled a quartet of retired sport horses, the middle-school paddock had a pair of rescued ponies and one warmblood. One of the ponies, a blood bay named Handsome-san, put his pert nose over the fence and winnied upon recognising them from a distance.

"Fumi-chan, it's your boyfriend." grinned Nao-chan.

"You only say that because you're jealous it's true." laughed Fuyumi as she dismounted to give Handsome-san a good petting. His black mane was as well-brushed and silky as she remembered, and he affectionately nosed at her, nibbling her shoulder and seeking more pets. 

"Souma-senpai! Sendoh-captain!" 

It was Nakamura, their lone second-year, now a third year. He came out of the stables still wielding an oil rag stained with synthetic leather cleaner. Looks like it was tack-cleaning day for them, which explained the ponies and horse milling freely around without even their halters. 

"Nakamura-kun! Where's Gorou-sensei?"

Gorou-sensei, who taught chemistry during curriculum hours served many years as the middle-school division's advisor and coach for the equestrian club. Apart from Nao-chan and Fuyumi herself, Kuroki-captain, Maeda-senpai and Fujimoto-senpai all trained under him as well. 

"Oh, you haven't heard from Wada-sensei?" Nakamura exchanged worried looks with her and Nao-chan, his bare hands wringing the dirty rag. "Gorou-sensei hurt his back after your graduation ceremony. Wada-sensei said that he slipped in the bath."

Now that he mentioned it, Wada-sensei had only been coming by three times a week instead of every day... It turned out he was coming here to fill in for Gorou-sensei whenever he could manage. 

"I wish he'd told us." Nao-chan frowned, "We would have come by to help out..."

"Eh? We can't ask you to do that. You have club duties at the high school side, don't you? And also we've got a pretty good crop of first years."

They looked at the trio of beleagured first year middle-schoolers who were in the middle of poo-picking the paddock under the cool morning light. Despite the three year difference, Hojo-kun was meeting their eyes with no small amount of commiseration. Ponies were hardier than horses and they needed less feeding, but their coats were thicker and ultimately required just as much care as their larger cousins. Their kouhai were really working hard.

"At least we can offer you congrats on managing to keep three of your newcomers, Nakamura-kun." said Nao-chan, giving him the thumbs up, "How are they?"

"Well, they're having fun with the riding, but..." Nakamura's swarthy and sun-baked features creased in a frown, "Everyone wants to ride Anthony cause he's big and tall... the ponies look childish to them. They think we don't hear them arguing about it before practice."

Well, it was a fact that ponies were more popular with children for their good temperament and child-friendly height. Even Handsome-san, the taller of their two ponies stood shorter than she did by nearly 10 centimeters. It hardly evoked the 'cool' and 'elegant' factor associated with equestrian sports. When Fuyumi first joined the club, she had similar thoughts as well until her senpai mounted up and showed them some true Pony Power.

"Haven't you been practicing with them though, Nakamura-kun? Gymkhanas and such? And you should have started jumping by now too."

"Well... yeah, but because Wada-sensei can't spare a lot of time, I'm still just doing gridwork and bounces..." he scratched his head awkwardly, ashamed that he had fallen behind the standards left by his upperclassmen, but then he brightened as if hitting upon an idea. "Souma-senpai, why don't you show them a jump?"

Fuyumi blinked in surprise. "Me? But Nao-chan is better at it."

Nao-chan obstinately shook her head, "Oh go on, Fumi-chan. We've barely had a turn on the horses since the senpai started training for Spring, so I know you're dying to jump. Besides, Handsome-san misses you."

It was true, the only thing keeping the pony away was the fence and he was so pressed up against it, it was lucky that the barrier stayed in place at all. Her kouhai was looking at her with eyes sparkling. And she did miss flying. Her best friend gave her a knowing wink. Nao-chan really was the best person in the world... 

With barely any further urging, Fuyumi dismounted and tied Montblanc and Marutaro to the hitching post before entering the paddock. After a month of hard labour, it was actually pretty nice to watch her kouhai tack Handsome-san up while the others ran to set up the fences for her. 

Despite only being in the club for a month, they had already become comfortable with the process, meticulously adjusting the blanket, girth and straps to best fit him, but when it came time to fit the boots on, the pony refused to cooperate. He did not kick, he never kicked, but he minced out of the way as much as his lead line would allow him. The underclassman whose name she did not know looked anxious under his senpai's watchful gaze as he repeatedly tried to fit the last bit of tack on.

"He doesn't like the black ones." Fuyumi pointed out after watching the kid flounder for a minute.

"Eh? But..."

"Handsome-san only likes to wear the white boots because they're flashy."

She went into the tackroom and fetched the white boots from the shelf. 

"It's Cinderella time, Handsome-san!" she announced cheerfully, "Here are your slippers." 

This time, the pony stood perfectly still to let her wrap the padded protectors around his legs and then adjust the stirrup straps. "I'm sure you've figured out by now that horses have lots of personality, but ponies are super smart and they can be stubborn." she said smiling to her kouhai as she led Handsome-san out of the stables, "This boy most of all. Do you know his registered name is 'Ichigo Parfait'? He won't answer to it at all!"

His dumbfounded look at the completely mismatched name just made her giggle as she mounted up. With the stirrups shortened for jumping, she had to drop her heels to a more acute angle to maintain a straight line of balance between her heels, knees, shoulders and ears while seated. From the stables, they advanced from a walk to a trot around the inside and then into a canter where she shifted from the seated position to a half-seat, lifting lightly off the saddle with her legs in full contact with the pony's wide-barreled body. Ahhh, she'd missed this! The wind in her face and the power running beneath and through her like a current!

Even after a month, Fuyumi didn't take long to adjust to Handsome-san's rhythm and gait, it was steady but a little impatient like her, and if she let him, he would've thrown himself straight at the fences. Instead she led him left and right a couple of times, making sure he wasn't too excited to obey her reins. At the same time, she judged his paces between the individual fences.

The high school paddock was a respectable one hectare, but the middle school paddock was only about an acre and both divisions shared the half-acre indoor riding arena attached to the high school division in the winter months. Honestly, a single acre felt cramped even on a pony, how did she ever feel like this field was huge when she started? Given the short notice, the club set up a couple of crossbars for warm-up and two progressively taller vertical fences, first a foot and a half and then a little over three feet -- just within qualifying levels for pony class. The three-footer in particular was a nasty one, clearly set at too tight a turn for a horse, but not a pony. Nao-chan flashed her a grin and thumbs up as they strode past. Her idea then. 

The crossbars were easy, but as Fuyumi transitioned her weight fully to her thighs in preparation for the jump, she felt her two-point position slip just a bit when Handsome-san made the leap over the first vertical. When jumping, the pony had a more pronounced roundness to his back than Montblanc and her failure to compensate caused her legs to slide backwards and out of line while her body fell forward so that the edges of his trimmed mane tickled her nose. Only a strong core stopped her from earning a second bloody nose by smacking her face into his arched neck. 

Hip angle too wide, she scolded herself, swaying precariously and barely catching her balance on the landing. Having lost her own rhythm, she gently wheeled him away from the three-footer, circling around for one more go. The pony snorted, tossing his head impatiently. 

"Sorry Handsome-san, I'm the one that's not prepared." 

"Watch your hips, Fumi-chan!" she heard Nao-chan holler from the outside. 

"I got it, Nao-chan!" she called back. 

They were approaching the crossbars again. A deep breath and then a short breath, Fuyumi refocused, matching her breathing to the impending jump. He'd done everything right the first time, but she'd flaked under the pressure. 

"Alright," Fuyumi murmured, giving him the reins, "Let's show them how cool you really are..."

* * *

**中村 孝太郎 Nakamura Koutarou (17 July 1995)**  
Shiratorizawa Academy, Middle School Division  
Height: 165 cm  
Weight: 51 kg  
Likes: Potato salad  
Current worries: He's not being as awesome a captain as he should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Curious thing when I was doing the research on this. The disparity between inter-high and international skill level is pretty insane.
> 
> FEI (that's the international body overseeing equestrian sports even up to Olympic levels) stipulates that there is a maximum obstacle jump height of 1.4m for Junior riders (that's 14 to 18 years old ie high school age) on *horses*. Obviously this implies that there are championships where they jump at that height like the Nations Cup. Ponies competing in the Nations Cup have a maximum obstacle jump height of 1.3m. In this chapter, we see Fuyumi hard-pressed to clear a 1m fence. 
> 
> According to the official score sheets listed in the Shizuoka Equestrian Federation (where Gotemba is situated), Japan's inter-high obstacles for show jumping only go up to 1.2m. That's a whopping 20 cm difference, which is no joke for the rider! FEI speculates it would take an inexperienced rider an upwards of 6 months to increase their jump level by even 10 cm on a seasoned horse. 
> 
> Incidentally, Nao-chan is within inter-high standards of jumping, Fuyumi is just under. There weren't any records for middle school competition, but I'm gonna venture a guess it's around 1 to 1.1m.
> 
> And this isn't even accounting to the spread (width) of the obstacles! There are a variety of obstacles, not just vertical fences like in this chapter, but wide oxers and water obstacles as well. Horses don't just have to jump high, they have to clear a certain amount of distance as well.
> 
> Man, compared to the standards of their boys' volleyball team where you have the likes of Ushijima (JAPAN level), Shiratorizawa's equestrian club feels like scrub level lolol. 
> 
> At the same time, I guess you can imagine how outclassed regular high school volleyball players feel when having to face down the likes of Kageyama and Ushijima. Monster generation indeed.


	9. May 2010 - Souma's Boyfriend (Or, the time Ushiwaka put his foot in it)

Saturday mornings for volleyball first years always began with warm-ups and a run. After getting all the nets and equipment in order for the senpai, the first years would put on their running shoes and do a long circuit of the school grounds and neighbourhood. The practice's purpose was two-fold. Firstly, it was the foundation of Shiratorizawa's nigh inexhaustible stamina, secondly, it kept the gym free for the senpai to use both courts in practice matches against the nearby college team.

This Saturday was much the same as any other. They started out in front of the high school gym with Wakatoshi leading the way, but after a kilometer or so, it would become apparent that his pace was just beyond theirs. As a fellow first year, he did his best to stay in approximate lockstep with his team mates, but every so often he looked back to find them flagging a few steps behind. Once or twice, when he got into the zone, he had even left them so far out of sight he had to jog on the spot while waiting for them to catch up. 

"Wakatoshi..." Satori complained as they crested the hill that separated the two campuses and staggered down it to reach him, Jin leaned against the pillar marking the internal entrance to the middle school grounds and dry-heaved. "We all know you're super-human, but it feels like you're getting faster every week."

It was a valid complaint, but it wasn't that he was getting faster, he was simply gauging their progress and slowed down less often. For that, Wakatoshi didn't think he had to apologise, especially not for their inability to keep up. Instead he just nodded, opting to stretch while the others caught their breath. Perhaps he should run at last week's pace instead for the remainder of the circuit.

"Let's go." he urged once all the gasping stopped (or at least, stopped being as frequent), setting off at a markedly slower step to accommodate them. Dressed in the hallowed jerseys of the volleyball club, the security guard didn't stop them as they ran down the road, passing the open exercise spaces that made up the baseball and soccer fields and towards the sturdy metal fences that separated the equestrian paddock from the human-occupied spaces. 

"Oya? Something is happening over there."

They followed the ever observant Satori's line of sight to see a small crowd standing by the stables and caught a glimpse of the dark maroon coveralls usually worn by the equestrian club. If Wakatoshi remembered correctly, there were only three horses, but now there were a lot more four-legged creatures than usual and a handful of middle-school kouhai were standing around at a corner instead of doing their own club practices, whatever they were. It definitely did not involve standing around and gawking.

They were watching someone gallop around the field astride a short horse. The figure rode a couple of rounds around the small paddock before jumping a bunch of barred fences. Or at least they tried to. The small rider, still going at quite a speed, pitched forwards and then jerked back as the horse landed the jump.

"Uwahh, that's dangerous!" Hayato exclaimed between pants, "It looks like they nearly fell off!"

"Watch your hips, Fumi-chan!" 

"Fumi-- that's Fumi-tan?" squawked Satori in disbelief. "Ehh... she can really ride a horse!"

Sure enough, if Wakatoshi squinted, he could see the words "HIGH SCHOOL" clearly emblazoned on the backs of two of the coveralls and that tiny human-shape speeding around on the red-brown horse was indeed Souma who returned Sendoh's shout with one of her own. At first glance, she appeared just like another middle-schooler, but elevated by her seat, her total combined height with her mount seemed nearly equal to his. If she had been rattled by her near-fall, her body language was now the picture of undaunted calm. Curiosity drew him and his group closer and by the time he reached the paddock, she had guided her ride around for another go at the fences. 

Despite the shouts of encouragement from the middle-schoolers, there was a stillness, a kind of wire-thin tension that he recognised as that breath-held moment before the serve. Souma looked at nothing, oblivious to her surroundings and her growing audience, her focus was fixed purely on what lay right in front of her and her horse. 

Wakatoshi didn't really know anything about riding, he couldn't pick out the subtleties of whatever Souma was doing to make her mount jump, but he could recognise athleticism and the body control needed to stay atop that mass of rippling muscle without flailing or yanking on the reins. Even when she was about to be flung, she still managed to stay in her seat. 

The horse and rider cleared three short fences in rapid succession and then made a sharp turn towards the last barrier that stood nearly half as tall as Wakatoshi did. She was facing him now, and the look on her face, the sheer power and determination she radiated had his blood racing as if he were on the court in the midst of a long rally. 

That small body he had piggybacked so easily had a slim torso that looked like it would have just gone flying from the momentum, but it stayed in perfect synchronised balance when the horse arced like a dolphin over the three foot fence. She was coming, and nothing was going to stop her any more than trio of blockers could have stopped his spike. 

_It's a straight..._

The wingspiker felt his arms sting, his knees flexing instinctively to make the receive as, in his vision, she soared in airborne above a net. In that split-second, he could no longer hear the drumming of hooves on grass, not even the applause of crowd, he just saw the way her eyes lit up as the sky filled them before the sound came roaring back. The horse landed, hooves making solid contact with the ground and continued to propel forward in that three-beat run for a few more seconds before slowing to a walk and then halting completely. 

_Remarkable._

"Kyaaa~!" squealed Sendoh from her vantage point, "Handsome-san, you're so cool!" 

"Handsome-san is awesome!"

...Handsome-san? Was that the name of the horse? Now that it had stopped running, Wakatoshi noticed that it was a squat and rather hairy thing. Far from its namesake, it looked short and dumpy compared to the other horses, but everyone was shouting for it instead of the rider. Not even Souma seemed upset that her mount was getting more attention than she was, she was happily patting its neck and rump with a smile that split her face more widely than she ever gave to another human being. 

"Wakatoshi, what are you doing?" he heard Satori's voice right by his ear, "Receive practice?"

He looked down at his arms held together in a platform, and his knees braced for impact. He hadn't even realised he'd done it, and he couldn't really explain it either, so he straightened up wordlessly.

"Oh, what're you boys doing here?" asked Sendoh, finally noticing their presence. 

"Morning run." said Eita by way of explanation and then he smirked at Sendoh. "Why are you guys at the middle-school? Slacking with your kouhai?"

"I'll have you know, we're walking the horses." the short-haired girl replied primly, "Also, we're here to see Fumi-chan's boyfriend!"

"Boyfriend?!"

"Souma-san likes younger guys?!"

This again. What was with everyone's obsession with the opposite sex and relationships? Dating was, as far as he could tell, not forbidden in the school or the club, but it was not encouraged either. The two wings of the dorms were kept strictly separated by means of forbidding red tape on the floors, security cameras and a roster of teachers who would enforce lights out and patrol the corridors for students who dared to literally step out of line. Plus, there already weren't nearly enough hours in the day for school and training, who would waste it on a girlfriend or boyfriend?

Honestly, Wakatoshi was surprised that even a seemingly serious girl like Souma would have a boyfriend, and a younger one at that. Grinning like a fool, Sendoh shook her head and pointed at her friend.

The shorter girl had dismounted and was helping her kouhai to remove the even shorter horse's equipment. It seemed strange, but the moment it was free of its saddle and everything else, the horse was completely unabashed in showing its affection. It followed her around like a puppy, sticking its side against her and imposed itself in front of any male who got too close and now that there were many boys standing around in the vicinity, it kept a watchful left eye on all of them. So it wasn't a younger boy after all.

Well there were all sorts of couples in the world, as his father said. Perhaps she found teenaged boys repulsive as some girls did. At least she looked genuinely happy with her choice of partner, however unusual. 

"Sendoh," said Wakatoshi severely, "You shouldn't just tell everyone about Souma's relationship with a horse. Some people can be very unkind."

He voiced his reproach purely out of concern for Souma's privacy and as a concerned schoolmate. She was free to be with whoever she liked even if it was a horse. Why was everyone giving him an appalled look? Even Souma who had come within earshot had the plastic smile that he'd come to recognise as "someone said something they shouldn't have". Satori bent over, laughing so hard that he was starting to make himself sick. 

"Erm, Waka..." interjected Jin in delicate tones, "It was a joke."

"...Oh."

"He-- He's just very straightforward." Reon added hastily with his arms raised placatingly. 

"Oohira-kun," replied Sendoh in unamused tones, "Don't apologise for someone else's lack of common sense."

"I misunderstood." he said, giving a half-bow to Souma as she peered at him over the horse's shoulder. If Wakatoshi didn't know any better, he'd say the horse was smirking at him, its big beady eye was giving him a dirty look of triumph in some competition he didn't even know he was taking part in. 

Having clearly and accidentally outstayed their welcome, he led his team mates away to resume their run. Just before they turned the corner though, Wakatoshi heard some of the middle-school students asking, "Sendoh-captain, could it be that the volleyball club is just full of idiots?"

"Shh don't stare, Nakamura, it could be catching."

* * *

**ハンサムーさん Handsome-san (20 April 1995)**  
Shiratorizawa Academy Middle School Division (Equestrian Club)  
Height: 13 hands (132 cm)  
Weight: 300 kg  
Likes: Baby carrots  
Current worries: He doesn't really like the new kids coming to look after him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ushiwaka: Your most accepting and unjudging friend.


	10. May 2010 - The Obligations of The Ace

**June 2003, Shiratorizawa Academy High School Division Head Coach's Office**

Washijou Tanji looked at the letter on his desk. The single sheet of paper lay spread open over the envelope but was starting to fold in on itself again at the creases. Regardless of its sender, its contents were far from out of the ordinary. Every year, old alumnus and acquaintances sent similar requests. 'Please look after my son', 'Please consider my boy's application for scholarship'... the same intent just different words. No matter how earnest, no matter how heartbreaking the story told, he denied them all, unless the child truly had the skill or promise to warrant a second look.

It was the same in sports and in life, luck was but a portion of the equation. Whether you had the fortune or misfortune to be born with the right body... but size was only half of it. He had met many a tall young man with the dexterity and skill of an elderly gorilla. Washijou did not settle for one or the other, only both. Simple is best, was his motto, but finding players to fit that criteria was ironically easier said than done.

Still...

Divorces were a messy business. Washijou and his contemporaries had seen his fair share of them over the years and how they affected students or their children. It was a thing discussed sometimes over a beer or mizuwari.

Some kids, if their parents were kind, clung to the stability of a training regime and came out all the stronger for it. For those whose parents were not… well… Kageyama-san once described a particularly disturbing scene at his granddaughter’s junior league game. A mother had shown up and dragged her daughter off the court, refusing to let her play because the father, her recently estranged spouse, had gotten his kid into the sport and taken her to the game without permission.

Unless there was reason to believe the boy was being abused in some way, the law favoured the custodial parent (usually the mother) with disturbingly unrelenting bias and not even the biological father had legal right to interfere, let alone some well-meaning stranger. Getting caught in the middle of that would be as disruptive to the team and unhelpful to the child. 

He put the letter in the already overstuffed folder, leaned back in his chair and... for the time... eventually forgot about it.

* * *

About two years or so later down the line, he found himself in Oosaki with Ohta-sensei. The middle-school division's head coach, Ohta Eisaku was a comparatively young man in his early forties, a Seijoh alumnus who played MB in the V League until his retirement five years ago. He was also a cheerful and obnoxiously large fellow who still maintained as much of his professional build as his age and activity would allow. Washijou usually trusted him to attend junior league games and make his own picks for middle school scholarships, but something, perhaps just a random impulse or fate compelled him to call his wife, Terano, and let her know he wouldn't be home for meals that weekend.

It was a quarter finals match, the Eaglets vs Tajiri Elementary. Unlike middle school and high school games, the spectators were mostly parents and family members with the occasional coach like themselves on the lookout for potential new recruits. Not many, though, because the likelihood of spotting something truly exceptional was rare at this age. Across the gallery, they spotted Kitagawa Daiichi's Gotou Manabu and locked eyes like strange cats contesting territory. The word was that he'd already scouted a pair of likely stars on the Taihaku Junior League circuit, so what was he doing up north in Oosaki?

Unsurprisingly, the younger man broke eye contact first, focusing instead on the game below. And no wonder...

“Ohta-sensei. That boy…”

“Eaglets’ Number 6?” Ohta-sensei followed his line of sight, “Stands out, doesn’t he? Especially that southpaw. That’s Ushijima Wakatoshi… he’s in fifth grade.”

Ushijima… Ushijima Wakatoshi? Ah...that's right, he'd received a letter before, hadn't he?

_Unfortunately, due to the circumstances of my work, and per agreement with Suzue’s family, my son, Wakatoshi, will be left in their custody._

His erstwhile student had continued to use his own last name professionally after marriage. If it were not for the Ushijima name on health spa and gymnasium billboards in town, he may have forgotten the wife's family name entirely. So... that was Utsui’s boy down there.

At first glance, the boy on the court didn’t look much like his father, except perhaps a bit about the eyes and eyebrows. The rest of his face was probably all his mother. That build though. At such a young age, to have such solid shoulders and long limbs was unusual. He was at the start of his growth spurt, something that often resulted in an ungainly frame, especially in taller children. As a ten year old, he was already standing shoulder to shoulder with the older kids on his team but without a hint of early adolescent clumsiness.

“I have him on the shortlist, but…”

“But?”

From what he remembered of the Eaglets, they weren't bad as far as elementary schoolers went, but bad or good, Ushijima stood out like a sore thumb and not just for his height. Washijou could see Utsui's form written into every movement of the boy's serves, but where he lacked control, he more than made up for in power. Two service aces in a row, one of them shot so fast, the receiver actually shied and ducked out of the way. When the setter deigned to send the ball his way, he scored, powerfully and decisively. 

It was apparent that he was selected for his skill despite his age and a pity that his relations with the rest of the team was less than stellar. The spectators gasped, some clapped, but few on the court congratulated him for it. Where the other boys might dogpile on each other, whooping up each other's successes, his points were taken as a matter of course, and accepted with a kind of grudging jealousy.

"I've been watching him for most of the season... it's as you see. He's skilled, probably levels above the rest of the team but well... they hate him."

It was a blessing to be so gifted at so early an age and brimming with potential, but it was also a curse. Washijou watched young Ushijima, the boy's eyes more alive than his unusually stoic face let on. Even if he had little by way of camaraderie, he still felt the thrill of the game, of rising above the net and blockers and breaking through the hapless resistance.

"I'm a little worried about team dynamic if we take him on..."

"Eisaku-kun, you're still green, if you're concerned about that."

"Washijou-sensei?"

"At junior league levels, a lot of coaches make the mistake of pandering to children's whims and doting parents." Washijou looked down at the Eaglets' coach, whatever the man's name was. "They want to make the sport fun. Ain't nothing wrong with that, but they sometimes emphasise the idea of playing with friends to keep them interested. So what happens when there's someone in the group that nobody else really considers as part of the clique?"

He watched as pint-sized setter send another toss to his friend. The forced spike went wide and out of bounds. "That man put young Ushijima in because he has just enough common sense to see that he has the skill to carry the entire team. But he lacked the resolve to build the team properly around the boy. For instance, if he took that useless setter off the starting lineup and assigned someone less likely to give in to peer pressure from friends...

"But he can't. Maybe he set a poor precedent before, by caving to someone's demand, or he's worried about losing students. Children's VBCs have that sort of problem when they ain't part of a school. We don't have an issue with that, Eisaku-kun. If they come to us, if we welcome them in, they follow our rules otherwise they can just get the hell out."

The Eaglets lost that day, but there was no denying that there was only one name that would make the list for their offered scholarships. Despite himself, Washijou could feel his mind racing with the possibilities. Against his rising excitement, he chided himself to not count his chickens before they hatched. As talented as he appeared now, Ushijima Wakatoshi could also plateau early as many children did and wash out by the end of middle school.

As the team walked off the court, the young Ushijima turned to say something to the crying boy next to him. At that distance, he couldn’t tell what was being said, and the boy’s face was expressionless despite his loss so it didn’t seem like a rebuke for the game. Whatever he did say though, it set his teammate off so furiously that the shorter boy launched himself at 5th grader. The crowd buzzed with alarm as the two boys rolled around on the floor. The Eaglets’ coach hurried forward with a few parents, a tall woman among them, to try break up the fight.

“JUST CAUSE YOU THINK YOU’RE BETTER THAN EVERYONE—“ his attacker screamed, flailing as the coach pried him off and dragged him away kicking and punching the air, leaving Ushijima still lying bruised on the floor.

He hadn’t thrown a single punch in retaliation. He just lay there until the olive-haired woman offered stiffly to help her son up. Washijou didn't think he was an expert on reading non-volleyball body language, but something about Ushjima Suzue's behaviour made it seem like she was a kind stranger more than his mother, even if she at least showed enough concern to try and help the boy. For his part, young Ushijima clambered to his feet on his own and nodded to her, probably assuring her that he was all right.

“Ahh~~” Ohta-sensei sighed, “It was only a matter of time that happened. There's just something about that kid that rubs people the wrong way, but I didn't think his own mom would be--”

“Ohta-sensei." Washijou cut him off firmly, "I don’t need him to be popular or brimming with charisma. That sort of polish can be applied along the way. For all I care, right now the boy could have the personality of the cow that's in his name. There’s good raw material there, let’s get it before someone else can.”

They descended from the gallery and found Suzue-san and her boy. That was easy enough, she stood a head taller than the other mothers in the gym and the others were giving her a wide berth because of the 'brawl'.

Utsui's ex-wife gave Washijou a bow upon recognising him, polite but impersonal, and he returned the same. They had last seen each other at the wedding and in the space of a decade, it seemed her features had grown a fair bit sharper compared to the soft and radiant bride that she had been. He felt it indelicate to say something like “it has been a long time.” given the circumstances of their previous meeting, so Washijou let Ohta-sensei do the talking instead. 

“Ah… greetings, I’m Ohta Eisaku. Head coach of Shiratorizawa Academy’s Middle School VBC…” 

As Ohta-sensei launched into his pitch, Washijou brought his attention to young Ushijima. Someone had handed the kid an ice pack and he sat on the bench, dutifully pressing it to his cheek while sipping at his water bottle.

“You played a good game out there, kid.”

“We still lost.” This statement was delivered matter-of-factly, if there was a hint of chagrin or disappointment, it was in the tightening of thin, callused fingers on plastic and the faintest way the broad mouth turned downwards around the straw. So he was emotive, even if not overtly so, and had drive as well. That was good. 

“Ain’t change the fact that you did as good as you could. Who taught you to play like that?”

Dark olive eyes glanced fractionally quick at his mother, but seeing her occupied with Ohta-sensei, he answered carefully. “'Tousan.”

“Oh? He must have been a good player.”

The boy gave another thoughtful sip, quiet and pondering. His reply nearly made Washijou burst out laughing, “Not really. Maybe. He used to be a pro, but he was always talking about his high school ace, and his monster coach.”

That was so like Utsui. Nevermind how well he played personally, he was always talking up everyone else. Ushijima fell silent again, drinking quietly and half-listening and watching his mother’s conversation for a while more before adding, “Shiratorizawa was my dad’s school. Oji-san, are you a teacher there?”

Oh, right he wasn’t wearing his jersey today. “You might say that.” he answered gruffly, moving to sit next to the boy. “Wakatoshi-kun, do you like volleyball?”

He received an unhesitating nod to that question. 

“What do you like about it?”

The bottle gurgled dry from the non-stop sipping. Ushijima looked again at his mother and then down at the floor, his reticence answering far more than his words ever could. A serious and mature boy, and probably more sensitive than his lack of expression and frank nature could give him credit for. Washijou laid a gnarled hand on the boy’s head. “I got it.” 

They sat quietly together until the conversation wound down. At his mother’s gesture, Ushijima hopped off the bench and bowed to Washijou and Ohta-sensei politely. Suzue-san’s tilted eyes narrowed tightly with suspicion as Washijou gave her another nod, but it seemed she would rather die than admit their tenuous connection. 

“Wakatoshi-kun, just one more question… what did you say to that kid that made him so angry?”

The answer was frank, without arrogance or bravado, spoken like a fact as if he were observing the weather. “Next time, give me the ball and I’ll smash them all through.” 

That sort of unshakeable confidence, delivered standing alone was worthy of applause.

“Ushijima-san,” he addressed the mother, “Talented though your son may be, he probably finds it difficult to play with his club. It would be pointless to let him be wasted another year or so on unfertile soil, so if you find our offer palatable, I would further sweeten it. Your boy can come by the middle school club gym for weekend practice if he’s willing to make the commute. Consider it an early start.”

“You’re being far too generous, Washijou-sensei.” she demurred, tacking on the unspoken ‘for a stranger’ with her expression. He ignored it. She was probably still wondering if her ex-husband had put him up to this. As if he would wait this long to get involved if he were.

“You are mistaken. I would not have offered if your boy did not have the skill.” he paused and looked at young Ushijima, watching the smidgen of recognition dawn as he added, “This monster coach has expectations.”

* * *

“Washijou-sensei, you’re getting pretty excited about this.” observed Ohta-sensei as they walked back up to the gallery. The next match was already well underway. “I’ve never seen you bend over so much, even for a scholarship student.”

“You’re overthinking it.” he denied more vehemently than necessary. “The boy has potential, but he also has circumstances, I am simply offering him a chance to work around them. Nothing more, nothing less. Whether he grows to meet my expectations is entirely on him.

“Of course, I will be relying on you these first few years to make something of it.”

“Ah hahaha… That’s a lot of pressure you’re putting on me. Washijou-sensei.”

“Nothing more than your job, Eisaku-kun, nothing more than that.”

_Because of the custodial agreement, I feel like I am about to be cut off from him. Still I want to believe that I have done my best to protect and provide my son with a future._

_It is therefore this former student’s great shame but most fervent wish to impose upon you, though I know you to be the harshest and most impartial of teachers; If Wakatoshi should wish to pursue his love of volleyball, please look after him for me. Please help and guide him where this failure of a father cannot._

‘Utsui,’ he thought to himself, ‘You worried too much. A talent like that. You would’ve had to bury it ten feet deep to hide its existence and even then he would’ve punched out of the ground on his own soon or late.’

* * *

**May 2010, Shiratorizawa Academy High School Division Volleyball Gym**

The first years were returning from their run in one pack again. Washijou watched them stagger back into the gym, puffing, sweating and thoroughly exerted for the most part. All except one. As he observed from the window, Wakatoshi had loped easily back up the road, leading his band of first years but never straying too far from them. 

Perhaps in any other team, a coach would not have taken any exception to this. Ohta-sensei certainly had not, which was why, he surmised, Wakatoshi was content to keep going comparatively easy on his peers. The result, though, was that by holding back, he also wound up going easy on himself. It was one way of leading, but it was not the way that Washijou Tanji intended when he took young Ushijima into the Shiratorizawa fold. 

He nodded at his newly minted assistant coach Saito to continue overseeing practice and beckoned at the young wingspiker to follow him to his office. The room was, as always, in a state of almost-mess, with various files stacked on his desk and knick-knacks given by former students over the years. Washijou would never admit it, but he did have a sentimental streak for his old charges. The wall furthest from the gym was lined from end to end with framed photographs of every year's cohort since he made the transition from college to high school coaching. Wakatoshi heeled him closely as they entered, mindful of the small spaces and loose items.

Most children, most young men, when called to have a little chat with a teacher would be looking about in trepidation and bracing themselves for a scolding. Ushijima Wakatoshi merely stood attentively until he was told to sit, which he did on the worn out armchair by the coffee table with little preamble. It was a reminder to Washijou that the boy was and always will be a little unusual, but that in no way meant that there was anything wrong with him.

Ohta-sensei had done good work with the boy, and it showed. He had the results to prove it: Three years running as Miyagi’s champion and rep for the Nationals, undaunted by prodigy liberos, other power aces and beating out even Kitagawa Daiichi’s star setter with frightening and overpowering success. Wakatoshi took the chance he was given and met expectations. Not just that, he exceeded them. Beyond the Nationals, he had opportunity to travel outside of the prefecture for training camps and met other players of his calibre. That feeling of being alone abated somewhat with exposure to a wider world, and the once expressionless face communicated more emotion, even if, at first, only for the game.

Their success and strategy wasn’t without a cost, although the price was a familiar one. 

It was a yearly affair for Shiratorizawa’s middle school sports alumni. After gaining experience in a powerhouse school, some boys realised that they just didn’t measure up enough to get their turn in the spotlight. Especially not while there were other better and stronger players. In the case of the volleyball club, it was clear that Ushijima Wakatoshi would remain a fixture on the starting line-up for the rest of his academic life. 

For those dying for a taste of personal glory, standing under his shadow wasn’t enough. For others, their early and rapid progress simply flat-lined. Their skills carried them well through middle school, but it became apparent it would go no further in high school. They left for other high schools, or other clubs. Washijou had accounted for that, Ohta-sensei had as well. 

He had to play the long game, and now their pieces were gradually coming together. The last three years, he and coach Saito continued scouting and recruiting more vigorously than normal, to build and refine a team that could properly support their pillar.

Before that could happen, though, he would have to nip this problem in the bud.

“Wakatoshi,” he started solemnly and sternly, “You’ve been the middle school ace for three years. Do you feel that your current performance is about the best that you can do?”

Dark olive eyes met his black with a hint of puzzlement. “...? No, coach.”

"Your progress since January says otherwise. If that is not your best, and I know it is not, then why have you been going easy on everyone?”

The truth was, it wasn’t just the running. Even that incident with the rebounded ball hitting the girl. It was fortunate that she was not badly hurt, but watching last year’s tournament tapes, Washijou had a feeling that Wakatoshi wasn’t hitting the same spikes against his own team. 

The coach sat himself down on the opposite chair and steepled his fingers with heavy brows furrowed as he regarded the equally serious face of the boy in front of him. Seconds ticked by, but he didn’t rush the boy to answer. The reply came carefully and thoughtfully.

“My dad… he used to describe the best ace in the whole country. He was someone with confidence and reliability, the team could depend on him to do everything… I want to be someone like that, but…”

But… even after three years playing with and among the best his age group had to offer, the memories of childhood still followed him. While Wakatoshi wasn’t unashamed of his own talent, he also held back in practice in school because he believed it was the way to ward off the jealousy of his peers and to keep his team together. That, and this was speculation on the coach’s part, he may have felt responsible at seeing so many of his former teammates either leave or be let go.

Ohta-sensei had warned Washijou about the holding back, but also added that he had allowed it because it helped the boy foster friendships and develop interpersonal relationship skills. That was in middle school, though. In high school and beyond, the competition grew even more merciless. There would be no more leeway for coddling. 

What was the right way to guide Wakatoshi? His pride was not something formed unfounded or based on spite, and his actions while misguided, were well-intended and thought out. On the court, Washijou Tanji could rage and shout at his boys as much as he liked, but now speaking as a former professional to a future one, he needed to take a different approach. 

“Wakatoshi,” he said at last, “What do you think is an athlete’s greatest enemy?”

The coach watched the boy’s face crinkle in a confused frown at the sudden change in topic. Again without rushing him, he let the latter ponder and dissect the simple question with whatever internal philosophy powered that curious mind. 

On the other side of the wall, the sound of practice continued, with each and every player well aware that he could hear even the smallest bit of slack in their effort.

“...himself?” Wakatoshi ventured at last. It was a good guess, if a somewhat tired and clichéd one. 

“Some would say that, yes. But you have a lifetime to wrestle with yourself, even up till the moment you’re one foot in the grave you can continue questioning and doubting your life choices. For an athlete, a professional athlete, their biggest enemy is time.”

The coach held up his wrinkled hands and touched the lined corners of his eyes for emphasis. Every day, every week, those lines got a little deeper. He was sure that he still had a few good years left, but as the sombre obituary he saw in last week’s paper reminded him, you couldn’t fight old age or death’s unpredictable timing.

“There is a limit to how much the human body can push itself. After twenty, your metabolism starts to slow, after thirty, your body begins a slow descent into degradation. With science, technology and just plain better nutrition, we pushed the average life expectancy of a human being to eighty, but it ain’t gonna take away the fact that our bodies keep aging. The average professional volleyball player retires in his mid-thirties. That means after high school, you’ll have at best twenty years on the court. 

“Seems a long time, right? It is long, but it is finite, and short compared to someone choosing to work a desk job well into his sixties.”

He glanced at the wall behind the first year, at the scores and scores of photographs of young men he had coached to date, Wakatoshi’s own father among them. How many had actually become professional players? Quite a number, to be perfectly fair, but the ones who became gods above the net were few and far between. 

“Wakatoshi, the road to becoming a professional is hard and the path to becoming a legend is even harder. You only have so long to secure your place and make this world take you seriously, and I only have three years to teach you how. If you ain’t going to give your all, heck, if you do not give *more* than your all in everything that you do, even in the small stuff, then this will all be for nothing. 

The boy looked down and nodded. Persuaded, but not entirely comforted. He would need one more push. Washijou stood up, beckoning Wakatoshi to follow. Together, they walked over the photograph covered wall and the coach selected one frame out of the dozens. He took it off the nail and carefully put the prized bit of memorabilia in the wingspiker’s broad and unprotesting hands. 

The image was old, slightly faded, and a little grainy compared to the digital prints of today, but in the coach’s mind it still captured the memory in his heart perfectly. Wakatoshi looked at the row of faces, a finger lingering on one of them. Utsui Takashi, shorter than most of the group, was in the front row, displaying his number eleven uniform. His big and dopey grin stood out even wider on his eighteen year old face. 

“Let’s start small. You think if you don't hold back, you'll be left out again, yeah? Let me tell you about that ace your dad always talked about.”

He tapped on the giant in the front and centre of the photograph. He was standing next to a man whom Washijou barely recognised as himself (had it really been that many years?) and holding up the Nationals trophy with both triumphant hands. It was their only one, even though in the years to follow they’d come close so many times. 

“That’s Kotobuki Tadaichi. He went straight into the V League after graduation and played for the Somy Bandicoots. Made it into the national team too, twice. Your dad wasn’t kidding when he said he was an amazing player, and he wasn’t kidding when he said that the entire team trusted him to do just about anything. But you know what? 

“I’m guessing what your dad didn’t say is that the reason they trusted him to do all that, was because he trusted them too. An Ace will always do his best while believing that his team is doing the same; You have a right to expect that much of them. Even if it feels like you’re leaving them behind, you’re not abandoning them. You have to believe that while you’re forging ahead, they can and will catch up to you and always have your back.

“Remember, Wakatoshi, you’re not a child anymore, and you’re not playing with ‘just friends’. They’re your team, and that’s a far more powerful thing. Don’t look down on those boys. Coach Saito and I chose them because we know they'll be up to snuff. Trust them, protect them, and use your strength to carve a path ahead. That’s what it means to be the Ace and anything less than that is disrespectful of their efforts.”

Daylight outside was shifting and the smooth glass reflected young Ushijima’s visage. What did he see, Washijou wondered. Was he still fixated upon his father? The faceless ace now given form? Or perhaps he saw himself. Washijou Tanji wanted to believe it was the latter… especially from the hardening resolve in those eyes. 

* * *

The very next day, the first years burst back into the gym after their run, nearly fifteen minutes after Wakatoshi had returned and started doing his stretches. 

“Damn you, Waka!” coughed Soekawa between his dry heaves. He pressed a hand heavily against the stitch at his side. “Were you going slow on us all this time?!”

Tendou had fallen over, even he was too winded to say anything. He just lay sprawled face down on the threshold of the gym with his head on the wooden floor and his long legs dangling out over the stairs. A couple of second years taking a break from serve practice started poking at him, amused that the normally hyper boy was completely taken out for once. 

“Yeah…”

“You should’ve warned us! We kept chasing!”

Reon and Semi just grabbed whatever water bottle was the closest, heedless of whom it may have belonged to and just kept guzzling until the container was empty. Only Hayato, having the sense to slow down at some point, arrived in functional condition and looking very very amused. 

“Keep chasing then.” Wakatoshi paused, mindful of the scrutiny that his friends… his teammates were giving him, “I won’t stop, but I know you’ll catch up.” 

The fact that he said it so unironically was irritating, but it was also sincere. And because they knew he meant it, they exchanged exhausted looks at each other knowing that they couldn’t do anything less than prove him right. 

* * *

**太田 英作 Ohta Eisaku (29 March 1965)**  
Shiratorizawa Academy Middle School Division, Head Coach of Boy's Volleyball Club  
Height: 185 cm  
Weight: 85kg  
Likes: Soboro don  
Current worries: He's starting to go a bit dad-bod around the waist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the wait! Long chapter (for me) this time around since i spent last week finishing up my Iwaoi fic. 
> 
> The flashback was actually going to be short and then it sort of... took a life of its own while I was scribbling out notes on my lunch hour. 
> 
> Incidentally, the first draft included the full letter that Ushiwaka's dad sent to Washijou-sensei, but the fact that the guy chucked it in his drawer and forgot about it made him seem like kind of a bastard and I felt bad so I omitted it hahahaa.


	11. May 2010 - The Quirky Ones

_Last for Shiratorizawa at the finals is number 7... Naomi Gallo-kun on twelve year old Ultra Fantasie. Her team has left her a very narrow lead with eleven faults total._

The image on the screen was a little shaky and it followed the figure of Gallo-senpai in erratic spurts as she brought her mount out of the practice area in a quick trot and then a canter up to the first oxer. It cleared easily to the deafening sounds of Maeda-senpai going "Owwaaaaaah! She did it!" 

"You suck at filming." Fujimoto-senpai said, throwing another karintou at her fellow second-year's head. His excitement at the first obstacle caused him to jostle the camera alarmingly and Nao-chan, having endured his two previous recordings turned green and looked away. 

"Ugggh, it's like watching Noroi all over again." she grumbled under her breath. Fuyumi kept her eyes glued on the screen as best she could, she pushed her thumb into the accupressure point on her wrist, gently massaging for whatever relief it gave from the nausea-inducing found footage style of recording. It was a good thing that Maeda-senpai had no interest in the film arts, his camera handling was ghastly. 

"There..." Wada-sensei paused the video and pointed at the frozen image, "Why did your ankles keep turning out like that?"

"I couldn't help it. I didn't realise it until it was nearly time to go out the gate." grumbled Gallo-senpai, her hazel eyes tightening with a grimace, "He got really antsy everytime we got near the fence, and I was preparing for a bad ride as it were. Then I noticed he only fussed when I put the spurs against him." 

Sitting by the big folder of records, Aomiya-senpai dutifully noted it down. Many official collegiate and high school competitions used loaned horses, so they recorded all potential mounts for every riding club or stable that played host. Just like people, horses had their own personalities and preferences and none more so than those who had been retired due to temperament or some early defect in training. Poor breaking in or a heavy-handed owner might render a horse a little insensible to the bit, necessitating heavier use of the rein, while others would shy or even snap at the presence of a riding crop. Even more eccentric were those like Handsome-san who only liked certain kinds of tack, or even riders of a particular gender or appearance. 

A little investigative work, studying the horse during shows and giving feedback after competitions built a database that helped them to make better informed choices when pairing potential riders with horses. 

In Gallo-senpai's case, she opted for a slower ride, as slow as the speed limit would allow her, so that she could better control the awkward position of her jumps. Better for her to manage her own posture and accept the time faults than to risk distressing Ultra Fantasie and getting thrown, which would have been an instant elimination. 

Wada-sensei played the video again and they watched her negotiate each obstacle until the disastrous double knockdown at the end followed by a refusal. Sadly, by the end of sixty seconds and eight of the ten obstacles, Gallo-senpai's legs had just about given out and she'd accidentally put the spurs back on Fantasie's flank. Two knockdowns, the refusal and five time faults made for a total of seventeen faults. It knocked them from first to fourth with a total of twenty eight faults, and a combined time of 183 seconds. Miyamura Agricultural from Zao would go on to Shizuoka this year for spring interhigh. 

"Naomi, that was even more painful to watch on TV." Kuroki-senpai stated while giving her teammate a commiserative pat on the shoulder. 

"Aaaargh, don't pity me for it! I felt like a clown out there! It was going so well until my knees started shaking!" poor Gallo-senpai lamented, burying her beautiful face in her hands from the recollection. Her light brown locks, normally immaculately brushed, were frazzled by the way she kept scrubbing her fingers along her scalp in irritation at every mistake she spotted during playback. 

"Well... be that as it may. You did what you could with a difficult ride, Gallo-kun. So brava for that." said Wada-sensei as he shut off the TV and pushed it aside to reach the whiteboard. "Kaigan will again be hosting the qualifiers for Nationals so we'll be a little more prepared in June. Which brings me to my next topic of today's meeting."

Wada Takeshi-sensei, currently in his early 60s, was much younger than the VBC's Washijou-sensei, but his time and work in the sun had turned his skin to spotted leather and his thinning hair a very premature grey. An OB of the Academy, he was once a part of the National Eventing Team, though not the Olympics, until some twenty years ago. Having survived a rotational fall with a shattered and poorly healed femur, his forced retirement from competitive riding had him instead turn to coaching at his alma mater. Even at the near loss of life, you couldn't keep Wada-sensei away from horses.

Limping over to the corner to retrieve a marker, he crossed out the spring dates on the schedule written at one corner of the board. "Spring is over, so let's discuss the remaining events for this year..."

"As you all know, Interhigh qualifiers will be in June, Nationals is in July. These are a given. For the time being, apart from Kuroki, I have not yet decided on a line-up for the team. Because Sendoh and Souma are with us this term, I won't dismiss the first years from the list of possibilities, so don't let your guard down. Your selection will depend on your continued performance and speaking of..." He filled in dates for June and July first, and then scribbled in another date right at the start of June. 

"Date Agricultural is inviting us for a little 'first year seasoning', or so Nishiyama-sensei likes to put it. It's their annual horse show, but to minimise risk of injury, their horses will be ridden only by their own students. We will be riding our own. I've already booked the school van. Kuroki, Aomiya make sure to get a good rate on the trailer."

Here, Wada-sensei paused and looked at the identical sour-faces of Maeda-senpai and Gallo-senpai, "There's no need for that sort of expression, like I said, it's for first years and it will be individually scored. I'll be taking Sendoh, Souma, Hojo, along with Fujimoto to keep an eye on things. The rest of you will have a free weekend, so enjoy it."

The coach busily turned back to the white board and wrote their names in next to the date.

"Why're they looking so mad about Date Agricultural?" Hojo-kun whispered, apparently not quietly enough because the lemon-sucking faces turned towards the first years. 

"Because they're all boys." they replied with similar tones of disgust. 

Fuyumi and Nao-chan both blinked at the synchronicity. Leaning over her records folder, Aomiya-senpai let out a 'pffft' and barely repressed snort. 

"More specifically, they're big beefy testosterone-laden farmboys who love nothing more than to hit on Naomi-chan." grumbled Maeda-senpai.

The half-Italian Gallo-senpai was undeniably beautiful and her slightly foreign looks made her stand out in a crowd even when she was frowning for all she was worth, but this honestly felt more like a Maeda-senpai problem. Everyone knew that he carried a Promethean sized torch for his senpai. Although which one in particular was up for debate. Perhaps all of them, given his harem delusions. Only last month, Nao-chan had caught him behind the indoor arena yelling. At first she thought he was just psyching himself up, but he was screaming "I AM THE ALPHA!" and flexing his wirey frame as if to make himself bigger. There were first years bigger than Maeda-senpai. 

"Whatever you say Mr Alpha." Nao-chan murmured under her breath, nudging Fuyumi into a bout of giggles. 

Wada-sensei thumped his cane on the floor loudly, startling them into silence, "You can discuss your hormones later. Moving on... the third years will retire in July. After that, is the next big one: Chiba's unofficial Summer Championships at the end of August, places are limited as usual so we will be using your Interhigh performance to draw lots for participation." 

This bit of news stirred even the third years who looked up with anticipation until he added, "First and second years only." at which they slumped. Kuroki-senpai 'tch'ed around the straw of her chocolate soy milk. 

"Following that are the school festivals and then... after November finals, we have the annual cross training camp with the middle school division before breaking for winter. Training will be light through December until Chiba's Winter Championships in January which warms us up for the next Spring High. Any questions?"

Fujimoto-senpai raised her hand, "Compared to last year, you've hardly signed us up for anything this year, sensei."

Wada-sensei grunted, pounding his cane lightly on the floor with the steady rhythm of a mochi pestle. "As some of you know, Gorou-sensei is still on leave on account of his back. I'm simultaneously juggling the middle school's practice, and before you ask, no I won't have the rest of you joining in the juggling. Kuroki can manage your practices just fine, my only regret is that I cannot be in two places at once to chaperone competitions. Focus on Date Agricultural first. Any other questions?"

They shook their heads. "Good. So that marks the end of my part for today. Third years, enjoy Okinawa. Second years, enjoy being temporarily in charge... and first years, try not to kill them."

* * *

After the meeting concluded, the seniors cleared out of the room, leaving the three first years to tidy up. There wasn't much to do; everyone had dutifully put their wrappers and used drink containers into the appropriate garbage bags for proper disposal, they just had to make sure there weren't any crumbs and food waste to attract pests. 

"Man, Chiba sounds scary, or rather, you guys look as wired about it as you did at the idea of Nationals." said Hojo-kun as they put the chairs back in place and swept up the club room. While doing so, they searched around and fished out all the projectile karinto that Fujimoto-senpai had chucked at Maeda-senpai. "Isn't it an unofficial competition?"

Nao-chan picked up the folder on the table, flipping through it distractedly until she reached the thick stack of data on the venue, Higashi Kanto Horse Park. "The only thing unofficial about the Championships is the title. You'll see a lot of very good riders pop out of the woodwork at Chiba, the ones who belong to schools that don't have an equestrian club. Last winter, Hisako-senpai snatched the silver from Itachiyama Institute's Agatsuma Gin, but you know who took the gold?" 

Hojo-kun shook his head, leaning curiously on his broom. 

"It was some third year from a private riding club in Osaka. What was his name? Kinoko Gontarou?"

"It was Kinoda Gotarou." Fuyumi corrected, "I know you're just saying his name wrong on purpose because you thought he was handsome and Kuroki-senpai was shooting lasers from her eyes. Anyway, that's the reason everyone's excited. Gotemba is important for the school, but Chiba, or rather Yachimata in particular, is actually the more challenging of the two in terms of competition. That's where the unknowns start making their names known."

She wondered what sort of riders she would meet in Kanto, if she were chosen. She hoped that she was. It was time to work even harder to make it into the Nationals roster. That was the least that she could do, the least that she could achieve... and have something to show for it. 

"A lot of these solo riders come from families who can finance their riding hobby without a school club. They're usually the ones who keep riding competitively and then professionally after college too. So you can imagine the quality of their training."

Nao-chan looked more apologetic than necessary for saying so in front of her, and she avoided looking at Fuyumi, but it was the truth. She swallowed drily behind her smile to tamp down the negative and anxious thoughts that came unbidden and patted her friend on the hand amiably as she could.

Shutting the folder, Fuyumi hefted it into both arms, stood on her tiptoes and shelved it back in to the empty slot on the shelf. "Anyway, that will be a challenge when we come to it. We're not getting a lot of competition experience this year, so we'll have to make do. Both Nationals and the Championships are using loaners though, so you'll want to make sure you've got a good grasp of your aids, that is, your commands pretty soon."

"That's another thing," Hojo-kun grumbled. Now that the room was clean, they could sit down and take a break. In the privacy of his peers, he slumped lazily over the table, "I get the idea that the loan horses are a real test of our skill as riders, but isn't it unfair to have to ride a bomb like that last horse?"

"The horses are assigned to the school by lottery." said Fuyumi as she removed her homework from her locker and sat down. Just looking at the numbers on her math exercise was calming after that momentary fretfulness. She just had to do her best, and only her best. Nobody could ask for more than that. Her mother's dissatisfied face drifted across her mind's eye and Fuyumi swatted it aside stubbornly. "There's really no telling what we'll wind up with on the actual day, but we can at least mentally prepare. That's why we manage the database and use the practice time to try out all the assigned horses."

"Yeah, but... I mean, it's unfair to every school, isn't it? It's like some hot potato that nobody wants."

"Well, they're living things not bicycles. A horse can't help being a horse, but a human has the choice to make adjustments to adapt to their ride like Naomi-senpai tried to do." Nao-chan mused, clicking her pen in that habitual three times before opening her workbook, "And sometimes a horse that doesn't fit well with one team fits in perfectly well with another, so the quirky ones are really a double-edged sword."

"Picture this: A perfectly trained horse with no defect in temperament is going to give a good performance every round no matter who's on her back. But if a quirky one accepts you and only you, that might give you the edge over the other riders."

"And also that moment when you figure each other out and everything just works. You don't get that with the perfect horse. It's only with the quirky ones that you feel like... you've met a kindred spirit and fully understand each other..."

"...or you've fallen in love."

"Wow, have both of you ever experienced that?" he marvelled, breaking through their daytime reverie. Nao-chan raised her pen in affirmation.

Fuyumi shook her head, her laugh underscored with vestiges of uneasiness that she hoped no one noticed, "Gods, no, not me. That's what Kuroki-senpai told us. I think the best I've ever gotten was a grudging concession to not throw me off."

"One day though... if you ride long enough with different mounts, you'll develop good horse sense." said Nao-chan, shooting Fuyumi another look across the table, "I guarantee it."

She couldn't tell if it was pity, encouragement, or both. But she took it for at least the latter, because Fuyumi didn't think she could endure the former alone.

"The two of you are really just horse-riding fanatics, aren't you?" sighed Hojo-kun, "I don't think I'll ever like them as much as you guys."

"That's fine." Nao-chan assured, "It's not just the horses that are quirky, y'know? Besides..."

She grinned at Fuyumi, who in turn raised her eyebrows. As if sharing the same brain cell, they pointed across the table at each other. "She's the bigger nut."

* * *

 **和田 武 Wada Takeshi (17 December 1949)**  
Shiratorizawa Academy High School Division, Advisor and Coach for the Equestrian Club  
Height: 170 cm  
Weight: 56 kg  
Likes: Karintou manju  
Current worries: Kuroki-kun can manage the club just fine, but he's still neglecting them quite a bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of creative license here. The unofficial National Championship in Chiba actually didn't start till 2015, which I'm guessing was a part of the push to garner more interest in the equestrian sports ahead of the Olympics, but it's an interesting competition to bring riders from different prefectures together without the fuss of Qualifiers and such.
> 
> Also karinto looks like poop, but it is delicious.


	12. May 2010 - Shamisen: Ichi no Ito

There is a pattern to Fumi-chan's behaviour. Having witnessed it for three years in close quarters, Nao is sure that she has most of the tics and tells right. Fumi-chan is mostly calm, and she's generally outwardly placidly sweet. Although she has her moments and isn't afraid to laugh out loud when the occasion warrants it, she's never been the most rowdy person, and Nao was fine with that. That just meant there was more leeway for Nao and Ayu-chan to act up. 

It's just that...

Every once in a while, like before exams or before a horse show, Fumi-chan would become very quiet. Eerily so. There's an undercurrent of some kind of anxiety, the closest that Nao can liken it to is a kind of buyer's remorse just after the return date has passed. Fumi-chan doesn't snap, but the fake smile comes out in full force and it's a little stiff and tremulous at the corners. 

By the time they finished their homework in the club room, Fumi-chan had settled into a sullen silence that persisted all the way back to the dorms. It went on through bath time, and dinner, and now when they were getting ready for bed. Nao has long learned that asking after her is useless, Fumi-chan is a habitual liar when it comes to such things even when she knows that Nao can see right through her. Just like her favourite "I'm not angry", "I'm fine" was also a popular mantra. 

Sometimes the mood would fade on its own and all would go back to normal. Other times, like now, it progressed to a stage that a stranger might consider a little bizarre. 

_It started a couple of months into their first year together in middle school, Nao awoke in the dead of the night to hear the faintest scraping of strings and a persistant percussive beat akin to traditional Japanese music. She lay in the top bunk, haunted by the idea of some ancient campus ghost until she realised it was coming from below her._

_It was midnight, just a few minutes into Monday, and Souma-san was sitting in perfect seiza on her bed with, of all things, a damn shamisen poised on her lap. Where had it even come from? Nao had never seen the thing in their room before. Was it a possessed item?! Was her roommate enthralled by some scorned geisha come to vent her anger on the living?_

_It was neither really, because after a while, when she realised she was being watched, Souma looked directly at Nao with perfectly lucid eyes and smiled that fake little smile and said, "Sorry, did I wake you?"_

_Creepy._

The shamisen, as it turned out, usually sat in Fumi-chan's cabinet in a cloth bag. Now in present day it was sitting on the bed, and Fumi-chan was staring at it with her chin on her bent knees.

"Hey..." Nao paused with her foot on the ladder. 

There was that smile again. "I'm alright, Nao-chan. I'm just going to practice a little bit, is that alright?"

Nao bit her lip and nodded. She shouldn't have said anything this afternoon about family, but then the idea of competition itself probably got Fumi-chan wound up to begin with. It'll be better tomorrow, she told herself, Fumi-chan just needed to work out whatever was in her head.

She climbed up the ladder and into her bed, feeling an uncontrollable urge right then to text her parents and tell them how much she appreciated them. After a little while, the muted tones of the shamisen escaped the confines of the bottom bunk. She knew this one, it was in all the movies that her grandma liked to watch. 

_~Yagate, mima kimama ni~_  
..In time, when my contract expires..  
 _~Narunaraba, saa~_  
..I shall be free..  
 _~Oushukubai ja naikaina~_  
..The warbler nests in the plum tree..  
 _~Saa sa nande mo yoiwai na~_  
..There, everything will be well..

* * *

Three strings stretched over an interlocking neck, connected by long pegs and an elaborately knotted tailpiece. When this shamisen was gifted to her, the _ito_ , the strings, had been turmeric dyed silk and the hexagonal _ito-maki_ , the pegs, had been beveled ivory. Now the strings were yellow tetron and the pegs were white resin - synthetic materials. Only the skin stretched over the hollow body was natural, cut from a once-living thing.

Feeling a little irreverent, Fuyumi lightly flicked her finger against it. Did she hear a goat bleating or a dog barking? Neither, really, just a crisp, resonating thrum that faded before she wrapped the _dou_ in rice paper and slipped the instrument back into its cloth bag.

She was five years old when Ojii-sama sat her on his knee in their mansion's _engawa_ in Tokyo and showed her his shamisen. Souma Ichiro was quite a stout man, straight-backed and tall with drooping eyes behind his tortoise-shell spectacles. His salt and pepper hair was just starting to thin as well, the hairline receding subtly no matter how he combed it. She remembered the way he laughed as he let her pluck the strings with her small fingers, listening to the sound that resonated and encouraged her stroke the taut white skin under the strings.

“It’s dog skin.” He informed her after she had spent the better part of an hour caressing the drum and listening to the pretty thrum it made when she flicked a finger. 

It took a long time for the initial horror to fade. By the time she had finished screaming and could be persuaded to let go of the protective grip she had on her dog, Warabi, he sat her back on his broad lap while she sobbed, playing tune after tune until the convulsive hiccuping ceased. Despite their macabre origin, the melodies were beautiful, soothing even. 

“Fuyumi-chan.” He cajoled her between songs, “Have you heard of Tsukumogami? It is a thing that has experienced a hundred years of use and become alive. This shamisen is not yet a hundred years old, so we must take care of it and use it well, until that day comes and Wan-chan comes back to life.” 

What an infantile lie that was, perfect for children. But it was one that appeased her enough that she was willing to touch the instrument again, stroking the leather with the same care and love that she used to pet her beloved puppy.

Her hands were too small for his wooden plectrum, so he showed her how to pluck the strings with her fingertips and, to the embarrassed consternation of her parents, taught her the words to the _kouta_ that resonated in the tea houses of Tokyo's hanamachi. Her childish voice repeated love songs far too mature for her understanding until she could sing them in her sleep.

A month later, before they moved to Sendai, he presented her with her own shamisen, a thin-necked _hosozao_ to fit her childish grip. Ojii-sama showed her how to press the tsubo and to flick the strings to produce the resonant sounds that he so enjoyed. He tutored her so intently and carefully that when she was introduced to a master on her sixth birthday, her new sensei declared her skill quite advanced for her age, with a good ear and musical sense. The opinion of the elegant old lady, a retired geisha who still lived in Asakusa, was well-received with some excitement. It promised a lifetime of stages and applause if she were willing to put in the work. 

Time passed, mostly in a blur of school, music practices and salons. Every month, on a weekend, accompanied either by Ojii-sama or a trusted employee, she would ride the shinkansen for an hour and a half each way back to Tokyo to visit her sensei for _okeiko_ , one-to-one lessons where her progress would be judged and new techniques and songs would be dispensed for practice. Summer and winter breaks were spent similarly, with more intense tutelage. Wrapped up in this schedule, Fuyumi did not have friends in her new home, she had people who knew her name and did not dislike her. What few friends she *did* have in Tokyo, she treasured. 

When she was ten years old, the skin of Ojii-sama’s shamisen had to be replaced. The dog skin that he had long ago promised would be given new life after a hundred years or care was coldly punctured with a knife and peeled away. The mochi glue was sanded off and a new clean skin was stretched over the body. Unbeknownst to the adults, Fuyumi gathered up the discarded skin and buried it, saying a prayer to thank the hapless animal for its sacrifice.

Modern sensibilities were taking over the craft, and the white dog’s belly was now goat. Ojii-sama, now shaved bald in defiance of hair loss, grumbled, saying that the sound had changed and as she gently struck her plectrum against the stretched body, she analysed the tone and agreed. The song was hundreds of years old, but the sound was new, different even. It was not bad, but she kept that opinion to herself.

The skin was not the only thing that was undergoing a revolution; the ivory that was so popular for plectrums and bridges was now considered a taboo material by modern society, but time was moving ever on. It was human to resist change and nobody knew that Fuyumi would soon experience the greatest change of all.

The year that Ojii-sama replaced his shamisen skin was the year her cousin put her on his horse at the opening procession of the Souma Nomaoi, ancestral wild horse wrangling, in Fukushima. Her kimono didn't even let her put her foot in the stirrup, instead she perched precariously on his lap in side saddle like a princess, clutching his arm with her eyes nervously shut tight and the sound of conches blasting in her ears. The horse was smelly. It occasionally tossed its head and tail without warning and it moved strangely under her, muscles bunching here and there as it shifted its weight and walked with the rest of the parade.

Why did she agree to this? She wanted to get off and go back to Otou-sama, but they had been walking for so long that her father must have been left far behind by now. Her cousin, still keeping her secure between his two arms, waxed between amusement and encouragement until he finally persuaded her to open her eyes. In a flash, the birdcage of staring faces, sitting rooms, and the never-ending forest of legs and bodies opened up to a broad blue sky, unimpeded by other, taller people. Her lungs filled with fresh air, as if it were the first time she'd ever really breathed. 

_"Okaa-sama, I want to learn horse-riding." she said nervously one morning after the festival. Her mother looked flatly at her over the breakfast table, her slim brows wrinkling as if Fuyumi had said she wanted to fly._

_"Absolutely not." Okaa-sama replied after a moment, "Why would you want to risk a broken neck? Why, don't you know... what was his name, that American actor... when you were born, he fell from his horse. He lived in a wheelchair for as long as you've been alive and the Gods only saw fit to let him die last year. Is that what you want?"_

Fuyumi had no intention of breaking her neck, but one of the _mon_ , the emblem, of their clan was a horse. Their very name was written with the same character! Horse-riding was in their blood, wasn't it? It wasn't, as her grandfather later informed her. He was adopted into the clan when his widowed father married into it. The truth was that ancestry didn't matter, none of that did. She just wanted to see the sky again. 

It was, it seemed, the end of the matter. Okaa-sama would not let her sign up with a riding school and Otou-sama implicitly agreed with the decision. And so Fuyumi changed tack. 

She told her mother she wanted to go to Shiratorizawa instead of continuing at Tsurugawa Girl's Preparatory. The higher academic standards at Shiratorizawa appealed to her mother's more ambitious business senses. She did not mention the equestrian club. They would have found out eventually.

They did find out about a month into school.

* * *

_"Who taught you to be so defiant?" Her mother had asked in cold fury in the principal's office, she was pacing like a caged leopard, "I told you 'no', so you lie to get me to agree to a transfer. And look at the state of you!"_

_She didn't have any reply. She just looked down at her tired and work-blistered hands and at the chuzao shamisen that she had hidden at home. They had gifted the slightly thicker-necked instrument to her recently in January to celebrate her eleventh birthday. Now it lay accusingly in its cloth bag on the chair, reproaching her for abandoning it as evidence._

_"Why did you do this, Fuyumi?" Otou-sama asked concernedly, he stood close to her to shield her from the worst of her mother's ire. "Are you tired of the shamisen? Is that it?"_

_"After all the work your grandfather put in to you. And the money! Don't think for a second that the money you were born into is yours to waste!"_

_"You don't have to do something you don't want. If you wanted to try something else, I'm sure we can find something... the koto, or if you want to be modern, you can have guitar lessons instead."_

_"We should never have brought you to Sendai with us. I should have taken Komori's offer to take care of you and let you attend Uguisudani instead. Coming here and letting you go to that stupid ancestral horse festival every year put ideas in your head!"_

_"I..." I can't breathe. She swallowed her words, those poetic metaphors that her mother never appreciated. Okaa-sama only appreciated the view of the sky from the top of their building and the floor to ceiling windows of her office. "I... I'm not tired of the shamisen... I just want other experiences than that."_

_"But horse-riding?! If you had asked me for anything else, I would have said yes. Even volleyball, that's what they're famous for here, aren't they?"  
_

_"I want to ride." she murmured. With no outlet, she started kneading the skirt at her knees, the internalized distress making her feverish. Her blisters hurt and her roiling stomach was churning. The bitter taste in her mouth was far worse than the smell of manure._

_"...Miwako." Her mother stopped pacing, demuring respectfully to her father-in-law who had been silent all the while. "Fuyumi-chan says she's not tired of her shamisen, so that means she'll keep practicing even without monthly lessons. Isn't that right?"_

_That last was directed to her, and she nodded reflexively. She took up the shamisen and clutched it to her chest to show willing._

_"I dare say, Fuyumi-chan also knows to keep her grades up. That shouldn't be a problem in this school."_

_She nodded again and she heard her father breathe again and her mother's teeth click together._

_"If Fuyumi-chan wants to ride horses while she's studying here, then I'm content to let her. It should be quite safe, I think, so long as she isn't steeplechasing or something mad like that. And of course, so long as she keeps up her end of the bargain and makes it to a good college at the end. I don't want to begrudge my granddaughter the experience of youth. After that... well... we shall see, won't we?"_

_Ojii-sama laid his callused palm on her burning head. "When it's time to grow up, Fuyumi will grow up, but for now, let her have these six years."_

_She felt the pressure of his hand, it compelled her to nod and then bow, thanking her parents for their clemency._

* * *

Nobody could gainsay Ojii-sama and he had given her six years. Three had already passed. She had made the best of those years, hadn't she? And she would make the best of these next three years as well, and then... accept that it would be over. Was it wrong to wish it wouldn't end? 

The shadow of her shamisen loomed over her as she lay in the bunk. She slept fitfully. 

* * *

**相馬 一朗 Souma Ichiro (26 December 1938)  
**Uma Para Group Chairman  
Likes: Goma warabi-mochi  
Current worries: None.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP Christopher Reeve. :( I had an aunt who said that to me when I said I wanted to learn horse-back riding, and ice-skating, and basically anything that involved moving at a high speed and not on my own two legs. The bubble-wrap frustration is real. 
> 
> We're introduced to a couple of motifs this chapter that will return again at a later date. 
> 
> The song Fuyumi plays (the last few verses I have included) is [Harusame](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1nVW-EPJeM) which is quite a popular shamisen piece and uses the bush warbler/song bird (uguisu, also referenced in the term ['oushukubai'](http://www.aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/oOri/oushukubai.htm)) and plum tree as metaphors for the geisha and her lover. 
> 
> We see the uguisu again in a later reference, Uguisudani [Academy], where Fuyumi's mother laments she should have sent her recalcitrant daughter to keep her in line. We will meet someone from this vaunted Girls' Academy later on. 
> 
> Also uh... Komori namedrop there. What can I say? The affluent move in similar circles.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [twitter!](https://twitter.com/Ao3RayBell310)


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